In November 2020, during national lockdown, hundreds of unusable wheelie bins were delivered to the Bracing Isles. A total of 990 120-litre bins, each too small to fit all but one of the council’s fleet of five recycling vehicles, were bought at a cost of £16,000.The two investigative organs of the Bracing Isles, Radio Bracing and The Bracecadian ripped into this latest cock-up, as the 21,934 population of the Isles were a bit cross, considering the ongoing deficit, pleas of poverty, removal of non-statutory financial commitments etc.
Interviewed on Radio Bracing, the gorgeous, pouting Director of the relevant Department memorably said:
Director: This was a genuine admin error. Who hasn't made a mistake? Steps have been taken to ensure this will not happen again. And its ok, because we got them at a really good price.
Interviewer: But they are unusable, aren't they, Director?
Director: Well, at the moment, that's more or less true. But look, going forward, when we get new bin vans, we'll make sure that we get ones that will fit our new bins.
Interviewer: Have you used up all the bins left over from your first bin cock-up?
Director: Well, no, but there's new houses being built all the time.. And they will all need their standard allocation of three bins and two recyclate boxes, which we are phasing out to replace with bins, because we don't want to give our recycling operatives bad backs, do we?
Interviewer: So that will be five bins per household?
Director: One each for general waste, glass bottles, pastic bottles, tin cans and paper. We have to be future-facing. And we got them at a really good price.
This genuine admin mistake (and who hasn't made a mistake?) is reminiscent of six years ago when the council bought a lot of bins in bulk to make savings on the unit cost per bin. (we got them at a really good price). 24,000 bins were delivered to 9,100 homes on the Mainland and linked south isles. This left 9,500 spare wheelie bins, cost £188,000. Here are the spare bins, piled up in a BIC storage yard:
In November 2013, councillors heard
that savings forecast had been “swamped” by the initial costs of rolling
out the project, and although local authority officials did expect
savings to be made, they said it was too early to tell how much the
scheme would cost in the long-term.
Good thing they got them at a really good price.
9 comments:
Meanwhile the entire nation is swamped with chest-high bins so ugly that the hens weep.
In Bath, that Georgian idyll, they don't allow the unsightly bins to disfigure the place - in case Jane Austen comes to visit. Or even jane Eyre. They get given stout bags perhaps half-a-metre cubed that the residents are supposed to put out on bin day. Of course, the louts just get the bags by the handles and hang them from their gorgeous Georgian railings. The vulgarian bastards shouldn't be allowed to live in Bath. They should all be transported for life to Hartlepool-by-the-Sea and be made to live in wheelie bins.
Really, mrs ishmael? Five bins per household?
A little projection on my part. Future facing. Currently, only 3 bins, but presenting a major problem of waste management. Prior to lockdown, you were supposed to put your tins in one box and your paper in another box and put them out, on recycling day, every other week, together with your bin for glass and your bin for plastic. General waste on the other week. With lockdown, they refused to take the boxes and said to put the contents in a bin, but not to mix up the recyclates. One week they’d take glass and plastic in two separate bins, the following general waste, the week after, tins and paper in two separate bins, the week after, general waste, then the sequence would start again with glass and plastic. You see the problem? Insufficient bins to dedicate a bin to each of the 4 types of recyclates. People either stopped recycling two of the sorts of recyclates (me!) or they juggled 4 separate piles of recyclates into two bins over a month. As BIC has lots and lots of bins, the next step is to allocate 2 more bins per household. Nationally, 23% of the population live in single person households. There’s no reason to suppose the Bracing Isles are any different. Everyone has a secret wish to live alone – hence all the house building. Each new house is required to have a dedicated space for recyclate storage outside the house. Doesn't matter about a garden, as long as there's ample room for bin storage.
In an attempt to beautify the bins, mr mongoose, it is now possible to buy self-adhesive vinyl sheets, cut to fit the bins and printed with flowers and leaves. Bins instead of Flowers. As for Bath, mr ishmael and I were there in 2019, looking for the American Museum in Bath to visit the Kaffe Fassett quilt exhibition. We found it in the end. Our mistake was thinking it was in Bath. You remember how mr ishmael felt about satnavs. Round and round we went, past a Georgian Crescent, down a hill, left around some shops, round the Crescent - which was a massive roundabout with houses, back down the hill, left around the shops, back around the Crescent, down the same hill for the fifth time, until, in a bold bid to escape Bath and go somewhere - anywhere - else, I turned right at the bottom of the hill and drove away, shaking the dust of Bath from my wheels; mr ishmael accosted a passer-by to ask directions, only to be met with the incomprehension of a non-English speaking foreigner and I eventually spotted a tiny little sign, pointing up another, wooded hill and I was away like Harris after a rat. Tracked down the American Museum. It was worth it.
But Bath? A toilet. Too much traffic, too many people, not enough signs, too many shops, a Georgian Crescent that manages to be ubiquitous, garbage bags hanging from Georgian railings. A toilet. A hilly toilet with petro-carbon emissions.
You are describing Hancock England, Mrs I. The shifty, calculating, soulless place (Boris being a floating, irrelevant head). If you merged Matt and Nicola they would be the perfect composite, meaning Death of the UK and death of what we love.
Everyone has a secret wish to live alone, as you say. Beneath it all, the desire for oblivion runs, as Mr Larkin says.
Well, we're being granted. what we want.
"The human body is the best picture of the human soul" said Mr Wittgenstein. I think he was absolutely right, but we've forgotten it, if we ever knew. I pray that we come to our senses and insist upon seeing each other.
In Bandit Country, mrs i, we only have three bins. Although I could have a fourth if I asked for one. It would be brown but I don't know what it would be for and I am not sufficiently interested to enquire. Every now and then - presumably when the binmen are hungover after a mad sesh at the Recycling Operatives Mindwarping Conference - they refuse to empty a bin and put a sticker on it. "Wrong shit in wrong bin, motherfucker." Frankly it is all such risible bollocks that I cannot be arsed but mrs m cares about it and then resorts the bins by upending them in the lane and rootling through the ick. I look at that as an Orwellian admission. The system has broken the poor wee girl? But then she'll toughen up and go maskless to the Post Office.
This drivel ends badly. TPTB always think that it lasts forever. And it never does. Sooner or later they end up hanging by their heels in the town square. Not always metaphorically. Those days get nearer.
Great danger in this mornign's Eng-Ind Test, mr mike. Terrifying chutzpah in changing four of a winning eleven. Win the bloody toss you fools.
I'm watching it now Mr mongoose. Break for tea. Great knock by Rohit. The England bowlers look tired. And England have to bat last on that already dry and cracked pitch. And India have 4 spinners.
Careful, mr mongoose, there's a former president of the great U.S.of A. being illegally impeached for that-there metaphorical speech. Incitement to violence, they will declare. Furthermore, his wife openly flouts laws designed to stay safe and protect the NHS. They will be interrogating your computer next for evidence of you conspiring to commit a summer holiday.
'Allo, 'allo,'allo, wot's all this then? Out in public without a mask? Endangering the NHS? I'll 'ave to arrest you for bare-faced cheek.
They do seem to be painting themsleves into an authoritarian corner, don't they?
300-6, mr mike. 350 all out plays 600 and the game is done. Even 500. The only way out is a pretty massive first knock. Root will have to get another 200.
Got the first bit right, mr mike.
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