Brought some rubbish back from the "recycling centre"

I went to the local council tip today with a car completely loaded with scrap wood, cardboard, newspaper soaked in puppy end-product (bagged) etc.

Unfortunately I spotted some scrap alloy wheels that had not been put into the scrap metal skip. After enquiring, and paying £10 to the attached recycling shop, I came home with 40kg of wheelium.

Now I've got to find more things to mould and cast .

You're a lucky man - you can't get anything out of ours, nothing is 'saved' once it has left the depositor's hand.

You can't even bribe the staff..

Yes, the OP is a lucky man. The local 'recycling Centre' here doesn't actually allow any recycling/re-use, if items can't be discreetly intercepted on the journey from someone's car boot to the actual tip, then it's gone.

Likewise.

The staff at our site patrol on a constant basis and make sure nothing goes the wrong way.

You can't get anything at our recycle tip either. It's a pity, many times there's odd pieces of good timber

Roy

If you took something from the tip and it then caused injury to yourself or others then the council could be held responsible and open to legal action,

We have a recycle shop at our dump but the council staff stock it with useless junk like clapped out filthy old furniture, china, ancient Mills and Boon paper backs, cracked windows, broken exercise machines and the like. All the lovely bits of aluminium, steel and brass go straight into scrap metal merchants' skips and the public is verboten der gerfingerpoken unt mittengraben.

Unfortunately, that is probably true.

If stuff is reusable, then it defeats the recycling ethos if it goes into landfill, but I suppose it's a bit Catch-22 for the council.

I have never seen anything I have wanted at my recycling centre.

I sort of believe that anything with scrap value might reduce my council tax.

JA

Not the main reason!

When stuff is handed over, it becomes public property, and it's not in the taxpayers interest for councils to allow scavengers to lift the best stuff before it can be sold. Everybody votes for tax cuts and efficiency, which means no public sector freebies!

Nothing to stop private enterprise setting up recycling centres, but they're unusual. Metal has become extra difficult - round here scrap-yards are extremely unwilling to sell to the public, let alone give stuff away. Lucky if your local scrappy is friendly: mine has razor wire, aggressive dogs, and an irritable receptionist - keen to buy metal scrap of all kinds, but not to sell it.

Dave

The skip yard on Portland, and its Weymouth colleague, is fairly good at recovering for re-sale domestic items that can still be used, and the Portland yard even has a shed "showroom" for small items!

Timber though... no. That goes into a huge skip in the Weymouth yard or through a hole-in-the-wall with a twenty-foot drop into an enormous bunker, on Portland.

I once asked about cycles and was told that they used to sell them but someone in the Council was persuaded by some dealer or other of a better return by taking them in one go in a container at £8 a bike. I pointed out selling the good ones publicly for a fair price, and putting the bad ones left over in the scrap-metal, would be rather better. The yard man agreed, but said management would not believe you!

.

If the scrap-yards are less co-operative now it might be understandable. Too much Elfinsafe-Tea more likely from ignorant insurers than from anyone who understands the trade; too many metal thieves so they don't want the joint casing; and both by those trying to steal from the yards, and those wanting to "launder" stolen metal.

(I do wish the Press would not keep calling metal thieves, "scrap-metal" thieves. Most of their hauls are not scrap at all, but part of property in use by its legal owners.)

Last time I visited a Pre-Loved Metals Stockist I was allowed to rummage for myself in the large yard; but was lent a yellow jacket to wear while on site.

I always thought it was not so much to do with public liabilities, as the terms of the contracts entered into with the recycling companies who deal with the waste; I'm sure that they're very keen to recover every possible bit of metal that they can, even tho' they seem able to pick and choose the rest (not so keen on tyres, here, you can't dispose of them at our tip anymore)

Has anyone's Council Tax charges diminished since we contracted out recycling (and everything else)..?

I have a neighbour friend who works at our local recycling centre, he brings me model engineering and classic motorcycle mags that he has "rescued".

I then read and recycle them around a few more friends.

Edited By Phil P on 09/06/2023 19:59:00

The Council Tax will never diminish. The RATE of increase may, and occasionally does, diminish.

JA

We have a re-use area at my local tip. Sadly no one deposits metal rod etc in it!

Hi all

i thought you could skip down to the local scrap

yard & fill your boot with all kinds of metal

not a chance they won’t even let you in the yard now

all to do with health & safety

our local council won’t let you touch anything thats

destined for the skip

Steve

Everyone seems to have jumped on the recycle bandwagon. Whilst I agree it's a 'good thing', it should be the third option after reduce and re-use, but there's not as much profit in those. I cannot believe that smashing up glass bottles, melting them down and making new bottles uses less power than washing them out, we seem to manage that with milk bottles. Beer and wine suppliers would soon adopt a standard bottle if non standard ones were taxed heavily.

In Belgium there is a deposit on beer bottles, I have 4 crates waiting to go back as soom as I can think of a good excuse ! Noel.

[quote]"......I once asked about cycles and was told that they used to sell them but someone in the Council was persuaded by some dealer or other of a better return by taking them in one go in a container at £8 a bike. I pointed out selling the good ones publicly for a fair price, and putting the bad ones left over in the scrap-metal, would be rather better. The yard man agreed, but said management would not believe you!........."[/quote]

In the past, people like us - who knew what they were doing - would obtain an old bike and do it up and fix it. But in this day and age, there are too many numpties who would take a bike from a recycling centre, pump up the tyres and use it without checking or realising that the brakes did not work, for example. You can imagine the horrendous consequences.

And for a recycling yard to decide whether an old bike was safe or not for sale, would be well beyond their expertise, time, and - dare I say - their insurance.

So, sadly machines of any kind probably cannot be sold or permitted to be taken off site. I don't agree with it either, but until courts start saying that people need to take their own responsibility, things are not likely to change.

.

Edited By John Doe 2 on 20/06/2023 11:48:39

Many moons ago I was a scout leader. We decided we'd take them on a bike ride. Several of them turned up with bikes with no brakes, flat tyres, non working gears etc. Lots of them had no road sense. What do parents think they are up to? We had to call it off, the next attempt we got the local bike shop to come in the week before and show them how to fix their own bikes. Then we had an off road route worked out

Amongst my pet hates is seeing adults riding with the saddle too low, talk about making it hard work.

Edited By duncan webster on 20/06/2023 14:24:17