Monday, April 25, 2011

Only in Britain

Trash collectors in Stockport, England refused to empty 74-year-old grandmother Kay McIntyre's compost waste bin after she and her grandson filled it with weeds from her garden because "they claimed the plants had too much mud stuck to their roots."

Ms McIntyre filed an official complaint over the incident, and in response a low-level bureaucratic functionary actually showed up and dug through her bin to verify that the dirt-to-weed ratio was within acceptable parameters (which it indeed was).

It must be so heartening for those British subjects to learn the insane lengths to which their government is going to ensure their "health and safety".

By the way, here's the entire trash sorting process for that particular town:

"In addition to their green bin for garden and food waste, householders in Stockport are issued with a blue bin for paper and card, a brown bin for plastic bottles, glass and cans, and a black one for everything else."

4 large wheeled bins for every household.  How efficient (and attractive).

2 comments:

Grace R said...

I agree that it's a ridiculous waste of resources to reject a bin b/c of dirt, but I do like that they're recycling!

Anonymous said...

Why do they force the sorting on the homeowner? because recycling is so blasted inefficient that even having the labor sort it makes it unprofitable - so they outsource it to you....