Newtonhill & District Village Association

I'm sure I could hire him out - he just needs feeding! :lol:

you are welcome to pick my brains Melanie, but if you are getting your green cone from the council it will have full instructions. Read the instructions carefully so you do not fit the lid incorrectly - like I did!

a bag ofg gravel from the DIY store to backfill around it is useful, and fine mesh is a good idea if you are woirries about our furry friends ( I wish I'd used this now, we don't have rodents in there but I do worry about it)

the sunnier the spot for it the better. our garden is quite shady. Sunlight helps speed up the decomposition as the unit is designed to abosrb the heat. Ours has slowed up quite a lot over the winter.

A big strapping person to dig the pit for the part that goes underground is useful!

did you notice the wee truck coming round grabbing all the bags that wouldnt fit in the bins this week?

Why didnt the council tell us they were coming?

Kes

Okay after the council failing to collect any of my excess xmas rubbish I have by pure grit and determination managed to fit all except 1 blk bag, 2 large boxes of cardboard and one xmas tree into my wheelie bin. I hope it will move!

I went out and spoke to the council bin men last week and got told that if you have excess glass, plastic and paper that they will accept them if you have already seperated them out. Mind you I had to point out to them that i had done that and there was an asda bag of plastic ready to go could they please take it away, which they grudgingly did.

So that leaves me with my next dilema. After going down to the Centre to check if I could leave my xmas tree anywhere I could see nowhere to leave it. So i guess it will have to be transported to Stoney one sat morning. I wish!

I am working this saturday and am away the next so guess what, it looks like I will have excess xmas tree lurking around for another 3 weeks! Guess i will be buying a plastic tree for next year but that goes against the grain as we have always had a real tree, all love the smell of pine, hate clearing up the needles but all agree it's worth it and yes i know its not doing the enviroment any good cutting all these trees down, but i do have plenty in the garden.If i could afford a shredder i would get one!

I agree with recyling but I still stand by my other comments, we need value for money and a realistic service which covers all areas of rubbish and all locations. Not just the areas the council think they can get away with.

Other councils manage an all round, satisfactory service for all family sizes, disabled and old people, people in rural areas and manage to provide the means to do so, why wont Aberdeenshire? Because they say they have targets to meet which will increase in years to come. But targets dont allow for lots of cheap undisposable packaging but hey thats not their problem is it? But i hope they will provide us with the means to dispose of these future extra rubbish targets without any further inconveiniance or will we have to travel to Stoney every saturday morning?

Trying to hide behind bureacratic words is in my opinion not called giving us a good service. This should have not been implimented until they had at least a proper recyling centre, and had provided enough containers and services to cover all areas of rubbish collection. Not everyone will have transport to go to Stoney to dispose of excess rubbish, how are they going to manage?

Anyway enough ranting, i feel a lot better now. Has anyone by the way used a green cone yet and if so with what amount of sucess?

Kes

:lol:

Like you, just being honest and putting my name to what I post!

Oops, forgot to log in. Sorry! It was me who posted the last message.

Well pete i thocht it was a footer o a reply but was too polite to say so,I have no car and no driving licence,I agree we have to recycle but this half cocked idea is just that half cocked.No thought was given to those who have nowhere to put those bins and in the summertime they will smell and what a pleasant prospect that will be on the pavements of Stoney.Yes melanie no more stinking landfill sites to avoid when you have a day out in the Country,why bother it will be parked in front of the door.Stinking overflowing bins harbouring god knows what and its all there on the pavement.

"Its not an improvement in parts of Stonehaven where people have no gardens at all and the bins are sitting on the pavement,not a pretty sight at all."

Glad to see you've got your priorities straight there. :roll:

Looking pretty is, after all, so much more important than the disgusting and toxic legacy of landfill sites which are leaving for future generations to deal with.

Give it a few months and people won't even notice wheelie bins any more and will have found something else to rant about.

Ella, why not just phone the Council and ask them to take away your monstrous smelly bin. Just use black bags like you used to do (keep them out the back) then proceed to get rid of them yourself. Simple!

Ah, that explains it. An unfortunate situation to be in, indeed, and I'm sure no-one would want to drag a wheelie bin through their house. But, unfortunately, it really is an improvement for the majority.

Very interesting Ella, but I *have* to ask - where did you keep your rubbish before? You're making it sound like no-one ever generated any rubbish until the wheelie bins were delivered!

I can't understand why wheelie bins are being seen as such a bad invetion - they contain the waste, they keep the smells and leaks inside, they prevent vermin from breaking into the rubbish bags and above all, mean that the neighbours' bags aren't being pecked open by seagulls, meaning that I look out the window in the morning and see the remains of their last week's meals strewn up and down the street. That is *much* more of a blot on the landscape than wheelie bins ever will be.

I think the new bin and recycling collection has been a success so far despite some of the comments. There were obviously going to be some teething problems but feel in general that most folk will now be more aware of what they are 'binning' or 'recycling'. Of course it won't please everyone but that's life so just accept it. I have no problem with the 'fortnightly' bin collection.

Good Point about the plastics.
After getting missed by our colletors the other day, I packed up all my rubbish and went to the recylcing point at the betterdige at the weekend. Must say it was much more tidy than it was a week ago.
However the bottle bins were still reeming full and I found it difficult to get my bottles into it. I found myself sticking my hand into the bins as they were so full however in hindsight not a good idea with glass bottles luckily I never cut myself. I shall not be doing that in a hurry again.
How often do they empty these bins, probably like the rest of them (when they feel like it).
Anyway getting back onto the point, what are we supposed to do with plastic bottles etc.... there is no point at the Betteridge Centre for plastics and if they are picking them out from the rubbish they collect what are we supposed to do with it ?
It does say on the written gumph that comes from the council that you should plastics in the box so I dont see why they wouldnt collect it, but hey what do I know.
Just a small point on Stuarts note earlier.... I am glad you are getting your collections spot on mate and I am trying very hard not to be negative. I am also trying very hard to be proactive about my recylcing but the council just aint cutting it at the moment and are charging a fortune for what is plainly at the minute a failed service. Yes it may be teething problems but i dont think so......I think it is a slip shoddy attempt at putting the onus on the consumer without too much thought other than that of financial.
Anyway if you are the sort of person who would go for a meal or a holiday, pay your hard earned cash and then receive below standard quality services and say its okay they might get it right next time. Then good on you mate your a better man than I am. If i pay for a service then I expect that service to be of a certain standard, so far I have had my rubbish collection moved from weekly to two weekly, given a bin I didnt even want, told I must look after and care for it as if it were one of my family (without any maintenance money),then not had my rubbish collected when I have gone out of my way to separate it properly, carted additional rubbish to different places in Aberdeenshire to get rid of various bits and bobs in my own car then at the end of all that it looks like although my service has been cut it looks like my council tax is to again rise in April 06. So please excuse me if I am a little bit ratty at the minute.
I am fairly certain that like most of us mere mortals that if we performed below standard in our normal employment adn halved our ouptut then asked our boss for a raise, I am fairly certain what 99.9% of the answers would be and they would all probably end in OFF and theres the door mate.
Anyway rant over.

thank you.

Have to say that we haven't had any problems at all with the collections either - and all my neighbours stuff seems to have been lifted okay too so no complaints from me so far. Do think that they need to have a bit of a rethink on the garden waste issue though and perhaps follow the example of other councils who do regular collections of it.
Mind you, that take-out curry we had from the Little India on the night of the last wheelie collection is beginning to get a bit whiffy in the bottom of the bin after nearly a fortnight festering away :D
Diane x

:roll: real nappies are real easy to use :roll:

Fols with regard to puttung out excess bags of recyleable goods, I contacted the council just before Xmas complaining that the box they provided for bottles etc was far too small for an average family and surprise surpise 2 days later they deliverd me another one. Their e mail reply to me stated that if you find the box or paper sack full then they are happy to pick up carrier bags of plastics and paper, but not of glass bottles for safetly reasons. Like others I have tried my best to get into the groove with the recycling thing, but find it frustrating that the scaffies only take half of the items in the box, tending to leave behind all plastics except fizzy pop and milk bottles despite them all being made of the same plastic.

As for the garden fire thing, it is not illegal to light a fire in your garden contrary to popular belief, as long as the fire is under control, properly supervised as does not cause great plumes of smoke to blow over a roadway, which is an offence under the Roads (Scotland) Act. Best thing to do if you want to incinerate your own is to invest in qa garden incinerator bucket (about £20.00 from B and Q) or if you can get your hands on one an old oil drum.

Incidently, having visited relatives in Fife recently, they have been recycling for a while now and as well as a weekly general collection, have been provided with a small paper, large composter and large bottle/plastic wheely bin respectively - Our council are definately at it.

Cheers

McGratts :roll:

If you have something that still has some life in it then the Aberdeen Freecycle Yahoo! group is just the job.

The idea is that you offer something, then people contact you and then you let them come collect it for free.

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Aberdeen_Freecycle/

Pretty neat way of sidestepping the rubbish issue!

Slainte mhath

Torc

Looks like they dont always want the recycling collection either.
I left out a farily large volume of tins, bottles, plastics etc both in my lovely wee box and also in other recepticles for collection today and they never picked it up. Surprise Surprise, okay it may not have been nicely packaged and nice and tidy by the roadside but it was there and it certainly was collectable.
I for one was guilty of not recylcing properly in the past and have gone to great lengths over the past few weeks to separate my rubbish, sort out the paper, wash out my tins, plastic containers etc and last week when I went down the recycling point at the Betteridge it was brimming over so no room there and today when I have left out the rubbish they have not collected it. They did from some of my other neighbours who only had one nice tidy council approved bin recycling bin.
Whats going on here are our rubbish collectors now getting selective on what rubbish they collect. They are supposed to be educating and encouraging us to recycle our rubbish which I have been doing dilligently for the past month or so now but if they aint going to take it away or they are going to get all hgih and mighty about how its packaged, i recon I and many ohters like me will tell them where to stick it and ram it into our normal disposal wheelie bins and be done with it.
There has to be some common sense here but these bleedin jobs worths are starting to get on my last nerve.
I will reiterate a message I left earlier if they dont want me throwing away so much waste and want me to recylce then lets put the onus back on the people who mass produce the flamin stuff in the first place for whacking great profits.
Rant over......did anyone else get missed out today.
How do I go about complaining to these hairbrained eegits who run this shambles, anyone any idea.

Every body seems to be blaming the council for the mess at the recycling points, remember it was Xmas and New Year too and aswell as having to do their usual work they are having to go round and tidy up after the mindless people who think it is alright to dump their rubbish here, even though in previous years they had to keep it at home until the collections!!
So if you are one of these people who left your rubbish here stop it and take it to the dump at Aberdeen.

P.s Could the people who either play matches or train at the football pitches please tidy up their drink bottles after them and also the tape etc left after you played!! You are not the only people who enjoy this facility, so let's keep it clean!!

Hiya Kes, the wheelie bin washers have already been around in St. Michaels Road. The very first day they were put out someone had been around and hung wee labels around the handle offering a washing service!!
Don't think I'll bother though, I lived in Winchburgh for 11 years and had a wheelie bin which was never washed in all that time cos I used bin bags so it never needed it - now at £3 a fortnight wonder how much i saved, hangover prevents me from working it out...
Diane xx

:roll: real nappies are real easy to use :roll:

Although it was a bit of a rant, I feel Pete raised some excellent points in his post. I too was quite appalled at the state of the recycling point with boxes and other waste all piled there in the community centre car park on Boxing Day - I shudder to think what it looks like now! But if people have run out of spavcce for their waste then I can understand their dilemma. I only hope it was just cardboard and paper not food waste otherwise we will be increasing the village rodent population. I had a rat in my compost bin despite using it only for veg peelings (other food wastegoes in the green cone) and a friend in another village has had mice in her green cone so the rodents will have to be watched

I have also started to puzzle over how to dispose of my Xmas tree - the Aberdeenshire website says I can take it to the recycling point at the Bettridge centre but unless they put a skip there I'm not sure where to leave it.

On the lighter side, I think outside of christmas our family of 4 will not be generating more waste than will fit in the bin in a fortnight (I find stamping on the waste before putting it in compresses it quite nicely!) and the crate is more than big enough for our bottles and cans. However if you have a big family, no garden and so no ability to compost kitchen waste, or there are other reasons why you might produce more waste despite recycling what you can, then I would hope the council would be sympathetic. what was clear to me last Thursday when what with the holidays I only remembered at the last minute to put out my wheelie bin, that whereas forgetting to put out your rubbish before was a minor annoyance, nowadays with the fortnightly collection it will be an absolute and unmitigated disaster! And if you are away for the week on your collection week, you will have to persuade your neighbour to put out your bin otherwise you will have try and cram in 3 week's waste, which I know I would struggle with.

On care of the bins, the bin can be easily be kept clean by not putting food waste in and also by using a wheeliebin liner - but of course this adds to the waste ;-). I am concerned about having to pay to replace a lost bin, I may not always be able to take my bin and recycling box/bag in until the evening and its possible with the mentality of some of the village youth it might get vandalised or just disappear before I get home. Hopefully not!

However Pete is quite right when he says that packaging needs to be reduced at point of sale and it would be nice to see more initiatives taking place with the big supermarkets to tackle this, rather than just hitting the consumers, who don't always have a lot of choice.

I think we do all have to take responsibility to produce less waste and dispose resonsibly of the waste we generate. I can sympathise with comments about council tax and what is the money they are saving going on. I would suggest there have been considerable capital outlays in terms of new collection vehicles, wheelie bins and recycling boxes and subsidised compost bins and green cones, plus staff manning enquiry lines and producing all the information that has been delivered to you on the changes to the refuse collection service. But there is always the Freedom of Information Act where you could ask for more specific information on what the refuse collection service is costing. If they are making savings it may well be being ploughed into other areas.

Carole

I loved some of the comments and am pleased i am not on my own with this issue.

Just to set the record straight i do compost as much as i can, but i do like my hedges. Sorry guys but i like to see green things in my garden all year round, but they have a life of their own and do need to be tamed a couple of times a year with the cutters! Otherwise my neighbours would start to complain. NO i am not intending a bonfire but i can see a lot of people will be very tempted. Also I am sure fly tipping will become a lot more common and then the poor landowners have to pay the cost of clearing up!

My wheelie bin is now over 3/4 full and another 13 days to go to the next collection so I am trying to dream up how i can, not just get into the horrible thing to squash it all down but then get out of it! I'm only a wee thing!

Pete i totally agree with you on the supermarket issue i for one would love to go back to picking your meat, fruit and veg and having put in paper bags, then they would not only be easier to dispose of, but the meat would then take up less room in my freezer. And yes i could go to the butchers in stonehaven to buy my meat which would be put in a small plastic bag, but i cant afford their prices and to be honest i dont have time to run around looking to buy fruit and veg from farms.

I do wash out the bottles and cans i cant stand smelly items either but i now have 3 bins in my kitchen so i can train the kids to sort their rubbish out as well so i have now got less space in the kitchen as well as unslightly wheelie bin which is hard to hide in my garden!

Dispite all my moans about this issue and i could go on about the lack of gritting in my street as well, i do believe in recyling. What i would like to see is a bin supplied for garden rubbish and weekly collections after all i do still pay council tax!

On another recyling note if you look up somerfields website you might notice their carrier bags degrade after 18 months but i havent noticed anything in the councils website allowing for these to be collected. But thumbs up to somerfield for doing that, i dont know if other supermarkets are doing the same but its a great idea!

Mike Rumbles has very quickly replied to my email and will be sending me some responces he has recieved from the council and believe it or not I am not the only one who has been in contact with him. His email indicated that he had had a huge amount of contact on this issue. It will be interesting night time reading i suspect, but if you havent heard from him yourself then i will pass on any interesting information i recieve.

So yes i would love and intend to co operate, but first the council have to give us the realistic tools to carry them out!

Bye for now and happy thoughts to all,

Kes

I whole heartedly agree with Kes & Pete on this issue.

Pete - I sent an e-mail to the council after I read that we were responsible for their fancy bins. I stated they left their property on my premises at their own risk, as do the motorists who use the supermarket car parks..... There was an automated acknowledgement but as yet, no official response.

Kes, dunno why your bags weren't collected, mine were - all 8 of them.

I spoke with the council yesterday and explained a fortnightly collection for a family my size (5 plus 2 dogs) was idiotic. I pay a darned site more in Community Charge for my detached property, compared to a 1 bedroom bunglow yet I am restricted to the same single bin collection, the same as a small house. I am advised that an extra bin can be provided but a visit must be made by a council representative first, in order to review my situation....

As for garden waste, I am turning my rear garden into low maintenance so with a bit of luck, I won't have to worry about grass cuttings & bush trimmings. Anyone got 10 tons of pebbles knocking about?

I think most will agree, with the forthcoming increases in council tax, we are seeing a reduction in services. Wonder who's doing the number crunching these days.....

Now I have a feeling someone will respond to this thread, disagreeing to what Kes, Pete & I have said. To put it simply, I don't think we are being given a fair deal by the council and if you are prepared to recycle your waste by yourself, make your own compost instead of disposing of it and basically do the councils job, carry on. I am old fashioned and like to see value for money. The council STATE how much we have to pay and they TELL us what we get in return and it's not open to negotiation. I don't think we are getting a fair deal on issues such as this.

End of my rant now. Pete move over & make room, LOL

Kev

I have to jump to the defense of Kes on this one as I too am totally sick of the continually moving goalposts from our illustrious council. I admit to being one of the guilty ones who did not do a great deal of recycling (sometimes bottles and paper) but not much else and now due to the recent situation I find myself recycling plastic and tins, even clothes. So one the one hand it is a great initiative to make those of us who were guilt think and change our habits however as we all know change does not happen overnight and some people take much longer to change than others so there may continue to be a whole host of people who still have a pile of household waste to dispose of because they are not properly recycling. Therefore the council has a duty to ensure that all refuse is collected and disposed of in the proper manner and not left on our streets.
To leave uncollected rubbish will only result in ripped open bin bags, unwanted furry visitors etc.. Education has to be the way forward and yes be harder and firmer than before it has certainly opened my eyes and others will follow I am sure once it becomes a habbit but this wholescale stop everything and only collecting the wheelie bin every two weeks is out of order.
I too read the literature that came with the bin and some of the comments are outrageous. The onus is now on the public to love and care for the new bin like its one of the family and they can demand to have access to visit it. How ridiculous is that ?? They gave me the flamin thing to look after.....so therefore I should be able to charge them maintenance !!! I'll tell you what if someone comes demanding to inspect my bin they will end up inspecting it from the inside, head first.
How can it be that our service is now cut to two weekly collections, there are less bin men on the wagon yet it seems that council tax is again set to take a big hike. Add to that other services are operated at a minimum and you really have to wonder about who exactly is running our councils.
If people dont want us throwing away plastics etc then stop the supermarket chains selling so much of it then. They only do it because it is cheaper to mass produce. Whatever happened to the old glass lemonade bottles where you would take them back to the shops and get 5p back on them (a great recycling ideal) old jam jars to get into the pictures (another great idea). How about we all take our plastics and tins and bottles and paper back to ASDA when we go for our weekly shopping and tell them to dispose of it (they produced it afterall) why is the onus always on the consumer (we are charged and taxed enough).
All that aside what I really wanted to say before going off into a rant was that I was down at the recycling point at the Betteridtge on Tuesday past and it was an absolute shambles. All the bins were full to reaming, there was rubbish dumped beside the bins in all states, there were loose plastic bottles being blown all over the place and it just looked like a vermins paradise. The big problem is I can only see this getting worse if the council continue to leave rubbish lying in the streets because people will then randomly dump it. Is there actually a plastics disposal point at the Betteridge because I didnt see one there earlier in the week which might explain alot of the plastic bottles lying about.
Anyway I have had my Victor Meldrew moment and I am off for a lie down and plan my revolution.

ok I did put bags out complete with wheelie bin today to be collected as stated in the councils website and guess what? my bags are still sitting out there!
Am now v fustrated i do not object to recyling but i do object to them not doing as they said they would. I also object to a fortnightly collection other councils manage weekly so why cant they?, also what are we now meant to do with garden rubbish?, once again other councils provide a bin for that. And before anyone says anything yes i do have a compost bin but i cant put cut branches in that. How if you are unable to get your excess rubbish to stonehaven are you meant to dispose of it? and the laugh is if you read the literature handed out it says if the lorry is full then get there earlier....how on earth do you know it is full till you get there?
Yes i can see a lot more bonfires happening this summer and god know what else will be thrown on top on them, so make sure you check before hanging washing out!
But this is such a poorly thought out scheme, the principal is good but what are we paying council tax for they cant even grit the roads often enough.
So yes i have emailed the council with my moans and yes i have forwarded a copy to the local MP and i suggest that anyone else who has a problem with this does the same.
Kes