From April,Islington Council Will Fine People For Not Recycling.

sg steve

From April,Islington Council will fine people for not recycling.

Siolae

How? How will they know who is not recycling if you live in a block and use communal bins? I live in a block and a few years ago the council gave us bags to put recycling in and told us to leave it on the street between 7-8pm. Now given that I had a small toddler at the time and had 50 steps from flat to street it wasn't really feasible to drag toddler and bags up and down stairs at bed time. However I dutifully did so once small toddler got a bit bigger. Then we were told we were putting it out on the wrong bit of street (still not clear about where the right bit was) Then they stopped sending the bags. Now the whole lot goes in the rubbish and I have got over the guilt. I expect hate mail.

sg steve

Islington Council say they will go through bin bags in communal bins at blocks of flats and fine you £110 for not recycling, if they can find maybe a letter with your name and address on it in the bin bag, so they can prove it is you who is not recycling.If you refuse to pay the fine,you get a criminal record. I would like to see a group of people,maybe a group of pensioners, contacting the council and the media and telling the council that they won't recycle so they want to be given a fine and a criminal record when they refuse to pay the fine. Then they contact the national media to flag up to everyone how Islington Council is treating people in the borough.See the letters on letters pages of the Islington Tribune,the free paper by entrance to Tesco in SG Rd and letter in Hornsey Journal. I would not like to see an elderly person or someone who suffers from illness or others being given a £110 fine and a criminal record if they choose not to recycle.Not to mention the invasion of privacy of the council rummaging through our bins. Or elderly people or the ill worrying that they might end up being fined and struggle to pay a fine.

Mirandola

They've been doing this for years in brussels. Seemed to work ok there.

Roy

I'm pretty sure Islington is far from the first council in the UK to implement such a rule.

The alternative approach to force people to recycle (which many councils also use) is to switch to fortnightly rubbish collections, and limit households to only one rubbish bin.

-roy

sg steve

See council advert on back of bus stop outside the post office in Stroud Green Rd near junction with Tollington Park.

Siolae

If you are elderly, disabled etc recycling is a lot more difficult because you physically have to carry the stuff for some distance. @ Roy the approach you advocate does not work in blocks with communal bins.

sg steve

This is England.

Mirandola - who cares about what the Brussel sprouts are doing.

We don't want people rummaging through our rubbish.When I read George Orwell's novel, 1984,I thought Big Brother would not happen in England,but Islington Council are bossily sticking their noses into our business.

Quite Right Siolae,and Islington Council are not saying they will make exceptions for the elderly or the ill or for mothers with children such as yourself.The council are saying they will fine people who do not recycle. I find the wording on the adverts on the bus stops in Stroud Green Rd patronising,threatening and rude.To threaten to go through our bins,people throw away private things they don't want some jobsworth from Islington Council looking through their rubbish.

Mirandola

The 1984 comparison seems a smidgen over the top, unless the novel was a lot duller than I remember.

"What's in room 101?" "potentially flawed but defensible local government policies" " aaaargh no anything but that, save me."

And Brussels is a very urban, mixed place with a large transient population and many languages. Kind of like islington.

Ian

If they want to do this, they should give us two proper wheelie bins, one for rubbish, one for recycling rather than having to put our recycling in an open box which leads to rubbish flying around everywhere. The green boxes are an absolute eyesore and people just chuck stuff in them as they walk past.

kreuzkav

This is over the top. Encouragement is where it's at. I've notice over the last few years a change in attitude. A few years ago only a few bottles, cans and some paper got put in the recycling green bins. Now plastic, tetrapak etc gets put in. As someone said proper full sized recycling bins should be provided rather than some big brother spy scheme.

miss annie

I don't understand the resistance to recycling. I live in Islington in a Victorian conversion of three flats. You don't need to have a box at all, or the proper bags (which you can collect from the library anytime or request from the council). You can put recycling out in any clearish bag as long as you write recycling on it. You don't even have to sort it yourself - the council will do it for you. Recycling by its very nature tends not be very heavy (indeed it is sorted in a wind tunnel type of contraption), so that isn't really an excuse, one could just take it outside daily when leaving the house. What is so problematic about popping tins, paper and bottles into a seperate bag instead of the dustbin?

kreuzkav

I try to recycle everything, as I think most of my housemates, but I don't agree with big brother spy techniques on residents as encouragement is better.

sg steve

See the letter on the letters page of the Islington Gazette not Hornsey Journal.Where a councillor criticises Labour Islington council

The Leader of Islington Council is Catherine West,she is also the councillor for the Tollington ward,which is the area which includes the area around the junction of Stroud Green Rd and Tollington Park. So if you want to email Catherine West the email address is catherine.west@islington.gov.uk to ask her about her threat to criminalise the elderly and the ill and others who won't pay fines.

Can a councillor deny that if a group of say 50 pensioners make a protest and they all declare they want a £110 fine and want a criminal record for not paying the fine, then the council will do their justice and criminalise them.

I would like to see hundreds of pensioners queing up outside Islington town hall in Upper St all holding letters saying that they won't recycle and they want a criminal record for not paying a fine.
Then get this photo on the front page of the national newspapers.

It is the principle of the thing: the idea that mentally ill people or elderly people and others might be worried that they will be fined £110 if they don't recycle and then get a criminal record. It's wrong to cause vulnerable people like this worry and anxiety in their own home. It's not about how easy it is for someone to do some recycling or not.It's a case of the council should not bully vulnerable people like the mentally ill with threats of fines and criminal records.

Roy

Well, deliberately breaking the law and then refusing to pay the resulting fine is likely to land you in very hot water pretty quickly - that's certainly not unique to this particular law.

-roy

Siolae

@ Miss Annie if you live in a block, as opposed to a street property where you have a bin / or green box you are only supposed to take your recycling out between 7-8pm. In addition you are only allowed to leave it in specific places. These limitations make it more difficult for some. If recycling is effectively made compulsory then people need to have the means to do it. Several of my elderly neighbours do not like to go out after dark so the time limit means they are less likely to participate.

sg steve

That's a very good point Siolae,many pensioners don't want to go out at night to put their recycling out as they don't want to get mugged in the street;and anyway they are watching Coronation St or something and they don't want to lug some bag full of recycling out into the cold night on a winters night.If you put the recycling out a day early in daylight the council can fine you for flytipping they say.Not nice is it all these threats of fines. So why bother.

Mirandola says the George Orwell Big Brother 1984 analogy is over the top,that's what I thought before I got a £60 fine for turning right off Tollington Park into Regina Rd.And there in front of you is a Big Brother Islington Council car with a six foot camera on the roof of the car to take photos of you doing a right turn off tollington park at 9am on a Saturday morning. Islington Council are taking the p-ss now. Then on the same day Haringey Council fined me for dropping off a friend at the bus stop in the Broadway in Crouch end for a 5 seconds stop.That's £120 fine for driving offenses and a £110 fine for not recycling a good days daylight robbery for big brother who is watching you. The council is treating us like mugs and they can F--- right off.

Ian

Don't get me started on the turning right in to Regina from Tollington. When I first moved here they put the no right turn signs behind a tree and got me twice before I walked down and hunted round to see the sign.

kreuzkav

I've never had a car so I don't understand the rant. Is Sg Steve really Andy? I don't agree with people parking in bus lanes during the day. But I've never been able to afford to have a car so I really don't have much sympathy. We live in a busy city where free bus lanes that aren't clogged up are so important. Please respect them and get over your selfish use of a car.

Roy

@st steve: fined by Haringey Council for stopping to set down passengers? Was that on a red route?

sg steve

kreuzchav - you are entitled to your opinion.I've noticed that you do make quite alot of assumptions about people sometimes based on a lack of evidence, in my opinion,which is exactly what I do on a regular basis so I find it hilarious. Bring back Tollington Tom,that's what I say, he was a great entertainer.Tollington Tom was a good comedy writer and I think he had read the comic novel called " A Diary of A Nobody" where the Mr Pooter character in the novel blunders around Holloway many many years ago;as TT's writing was refererring "A Diary of a nobody" .Anyway my regards to Tollington Tom's wife, Dorcus. I wonder if TT ever got the mural finished?Quite right Kreuzchav parking in a bus lane is a very very bad thing to do.I hope I did not commit the double offense of having a jumper slung around my shoulder as I had my photo taken by Haringey council cctv as that could spark a class war! Eh Kreuzkav! Middle class car owners parking in red route bus lanes wearing a jumper around their neck and possibly going for a meal at Season later in the evening! Crazy Crouch End! The world has gone mad I say to ye.
I don't own a car though it was someone else's car - but maybe you assumed i was a car owner and a jumper wearer! .Tollington Tom wrote that he was Australian,I would be interested to know how they deal with recycling in Australia, maybe Tollington Tom could let us know or maybe Dorcus could pipe up? Come back TT.

kreuzkav

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sg steve

It's kicking off like the brad pitt film "fight club" now on sg.org.

There is only one rule of fight club,you don't talk about fight club:

Let's ave it: "who are ya! who are ya!"

Kreuzkchav: you are entitled to your opinion and you write:

"There is this type of smug git who wears a jumper over a shirt and goes to seasons.It was a joke but of course the jumper brigade couldn't take it.Anything to justify their greed."

Let's have a Stroud Green Road,class war!

Middle class lads wearing jumpers over shirts down by season.

Working class lads wearing tracksuits down by White Lion of Mortimer. Both sets of lads running at each other in sg rd.

"Let's ave it".

"who are ya! who are ya!"

Bundle!

Fight! Fight! Fight!

That'll sort it out once and for all?

ps - the paddys beat us today in ireland so eh maybe postpone the fight - the english lads need to regroup. Maybe beers have been drunk and its time to talk recycling like wot this thread iz about,no ?

kreuzkav

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kreuzkav

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ActionVerb

Kreuzkav- you're the most paranoid, ridiculous, and quite frankly pathetic person I've ever come across on an internet forum. I've never seen someone have such a massive chip on their shoulder about their own inadequacies. You're clearly not happy with what you have, this doesn't mean that someone that may or may not have more money than you is some sort of bourgeois scumbag. You've made so many unsubstantiated assumptions over the last few weeks on this forum that it's completely out of order. Your responses to Andy have crossed the line - at the end of the day, it's his website. If you're not happy with the topic of discussions, you're than welcome to find an alternative website. Oh, and yeah, I live in SG, can afford to keep a car, eat out in Season and Sugar Lounge while wearing a nice shirt & jumper combo with my nice 'kushty' office job. All of that after living on a Council estate for 18 years... not that i'm any sort of success story, but your self pity is pathetic. This forum isn't about class war. You're the one driving the issue and prejudices. It's time for the Porchetta - Papagone debate...

sg steve

evening govenor,

yeah alright everyone is having a saturday night metaphorical punch up after a few drinks and getting on sg.org forum and mucking around.

Fair enough having a Saturday night drunken metaphorical fight club / ding dong.

Back to the topic of the thread - if you have a look on the back of the bus stop outside the post office in stroud green rd near the junction with tollington park, read this islington council advert, they are threating us with real fines.

It ain't right gov.

ShaunG

@kk - if I understand your last few posts you seem to have concluded that this sg steve is actually Andy? I find that utterly unlikely. Back to the topic - I'd prefer not to see fining, but as a nation we recycle a great deal less than we could (and than other countries manage) and it has a part to play in reducing energy consumption and landfill use (which because of landfill taxes can also save the council money thus relieving some of the cuts pressure we're all concerned about). I agree with Ian about the green boxes - if people are recycling as much as they can, the boxes are just not big enough. Before fining, there should be practical and easily used recycling options so that there is no excuse not to. Not living in a block I don't know if that's the case now.

Siolae

When I lived in Barnet, in a block, the coucil provided each block with several different bins for your different recyclables as well as normal bins. The only issue was sometimes the recycling bins didn't get emptied frequently enough, however at least it made recycling easier. Surely this is more environmentally friendly than providing residents with bin bags and also meant that the sorting was done at source saving the council money. I am quite happy to recycle if given the means to do so.

kreuzkav

@Actionverb. I'm fairly happy with myself but have strong opinions. I have edited my above opinions to tone things down a bit and to keep things on topic, even though it was SG Steve who went off topic first. I like a lot of the places like Seasons, The Dairy and The Noble, and wear sweaters. I have as much disdain for people who wallow in working class cliche. I'm just being polemical and trying to play around with the notion of class in SG. This site is SG.org? And I do like Andy, but disagree with some of what he says. It's a forum. I am trying to stop the ranting and debate in a calm way but I think others like to provoke.

Have a lovely Sunday everyone!

Mirandola

So sg steve is Tollington Tom, right?