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Quick question: Who was going to make me have seven different bins?

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Rishi Sunak announces changes in green tagets

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    • Truss would have given the bins decommissioned WW2 Lee Enfield rifles and spun that as a massive increase in the UK’s armed forces

      Johnson would have spun it as a fresh influx of talent into his young, thrusting cabinet

      In Sunak’s case, it’s one last desperate spin of the revolver chamber in a losing game of electoral Russian roulette

    • Yep. Announcing they won’t do a bunch of things no one thought they would equals ‘Long term decisions for a brighter future’ apparently 🙄

  4. I used to live in a 2 bed terrace house on a narrow road with parking restrictions on one side to enable cars and school buses to drive down it.

    The idea of 7 bins and charging an electric car is a non-starter as the pathway would be impassable by anyone with a buggy or wheelchair and one side of the road would have to agree not to park their cars for home charging.

  7. Not a vote winner for them, I think. Even the car manufacturers think pushing the date for banning new petrol and diesel car sales to 2035 is a bad idea.
    What we have here is a desperate Zombie Government trying to appeal to a shrinking fanbase. The Tories aren’t going to be in government for much longer, unless Starmzy does something really stupid.

  8. I wonder whether the weight of responsibility is being felt on the shoulders of the electorate of Uxbridge and South Ruislip. This is all their fault ( please, please, no-one take that comment seriously).
    One by-election result extrapolated into a mandate to condemn the planet.

  9. I’m reminded of David Cameron’s “cut the green crap” when he cancelled the green levy in 2013. That was spent on insulating houses, many of the 1930s-built council houses round here had cladding applied and I lagged my loft with subsidised Rockwool, bought from B&Q for five quid a roll.

    Fast-forward to winter 2022 and millions of people in the UK can’t afford to heat their poorly-insulated homes, and there are fires and floods around the globe. I don’t want to get all conspiracy theorist about it, but I would not be at all surprised if the likes of BP gave large donations to the Tory party.

    Twunts, the lot of ’em.

  10. But wasn’t the 2030 deadline simply plucked out of the air by Johnson in an attempt to appease Carrie Antoinette?

    In true Johnson style, there doesn’t seem to have been any kind of thought as to how to go about addressing the issues raised by Uncle Wheaty a few posts above.

    One can only hope that a bunch of Bojo’s mates have lost some serious money in buying plastics futures in anticipation of an exponenetial rise in demand for wheels bins.

  11. First, let me say that I loathe the Conservative party, each and every paid-up member, but particularly Johnson and Truss. The damage the party has inflicted on this country (both politically and financially) over the past 13 years will remain with us for decades to come. I also would not knowingly befriend anyone who consistently read the Daily Mail. And I am glaringly aware of the threat of global warming and recognize tough choices have to be made.

    That said, I have to admit to breathing a sigh of relief with Sunak’s U-turn on the phasing out of petrol- and diesel-driven cars and gas-fired boilers. I think Johnson was just plain wrong to use his back-of-a-fag-packet calculations to arbitrarily impose the 2030 deadline without any substantial consultation over the implications; I suspect he did this in the full knowledge that he would not be around when implementation of the policy began to kick in (typically). And I always thought that the deadline would have to be amended.

    I am on a pension and, to put it bluntly, cannot afford a new electric car (at least as they are currently priced). I have clocked up 100,000 miles in my current car and at some point in the next five years or so will be looking to get another vehicle. I would like to buy an EV, obviously. But how much will it cost and will technological advances (battery life, hydrogen fuel etc) quickly make it the wrong choice? Second-hand EVs are not a reliable alternative at the moment as battery life remains an uncertainty in older models. True, prices probably will fall as manufacturers ramp up production, but there is also the geo-political uncertainty around supplies of the heavy metals needed for battery manufacture.

    And how were all these vehicles and heat pumps going to be powered after 2030 and where were all the charging points going to be? Is the existing power-station capacity enough to meet the inevitable demand? Hundreds of thousands of cars are parked on streets around the country and tens of thousands of charging points would have been needed to meet demand after 2030. How was this going to be managed? There are also social implications; how will we feel if a selfish driver leaves his vehicle on charge while he/she goes off for 40 minutes to do his/her shopping or leaves a vehicle in a charging bay overnight?

    Sure, the 2030 deadline would have focused minds. And what does worry me is that, although the deadline has been moved five years down the line, this announcement was not accompanied by any Downing Street commitment to spending in preparation for this shift. But seven years was inadequate a run-up for the size of the change needed. The implications of net-zero both here in the UK and globally are just too massive to be addressed by slogan politics.

    • I think your last paragraph hits a nail. Downing Street are simply not willing to invest in the grid and in a national network of charge points despite subsidising the oil and gas industries by colossal amounts.

      I agree on slogan politics. There was Rishi making a plea for a different kind of politics whilst disingenuously trying to win votes at a lectern with a slogan on it.

      • “I suspect [Any Given Politician] did this in the full knowledge that he would not be around when implementation of the policy began to kick in ”

        Think you may be onto something there.

  12. On the car thing, it seems that manufacturers are going hell for leather down the EV route, so just how many new petrol and diesel models will still be available in 2030 or 2035 is an open question.

    For people worried about the cost, 80% of car purchases are second hand anyway, and cars last a long time these days, so there will be plenty of petrol and diesel cars around for a long while yet.

    But, aren’t we looking at this from the wrong end of the telescope? EVs still cause congestion and use up resources, so shouldn’t we be investing in other ways of getting around, or other ways of using cars rather than personal ownership of a vehicle that sits in the road for most of its life?

    • Road transportation accounts for 25% of CO2 emissions, and private cars acccount for 60% of that 25%. So that’s only 15% of the total – it’s the biggest bang per buck from a domestic POV, but 85% is from other sources.

      And the rare-earth metals used in EV car batteries are horrible, and not at all environmentally friendly.

      So, leaving aside the issue of decent public transport, the present generation of EVs are one small step along a long path to net zero.

      There’s a good 25-min Sliced Bread podcast at https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m00162yr

      • Yes.
        Electric vehicles are a stopgap, not a solution.
        I drive a petrol car, currently. I was planning on giving up on car ownership once my car-at-the-time (also petrol-powered) died, but then I wrote it off during the pandemic so public transport stopped being an option. I bought a cheap-ish s/h car but my annual mileage is low. About 3,300 miles.
        My current vehicle is once more likely to be my last one. My pension income is and will remain limited. Meanwhile petrol prices, road tax, car insurance and maintenance costs are guaranteed to rise, along with all other costs of present-day living, so the returns of car ownership are diminishing fast. Perhaps it’ll be more cost-effective to hire a car for medium/long journeys and use public transport or walk the rest of the time.

      • There was a time when the Hydrogen Cell was talked up. I think it may be a better solution (belive ir ro be greener than battery production).
        But car manufacturers chse not to go that route, and the infrastructure to support it is non- existent

        • I’m just back from presenting at a schools outreach event at the Cavendish Labs (Cambridge Univeristy Physics department, home of the jet engine). They’re already working on the generation after the EV’s replacement.

          If I was a 15-y-o GCSE Physics student again, that’s where I’d be looking for a job. It was all O-levels round ‘ere in our day…

  13. Ask yourselves do you really need a car (or two cars in your household)? I need a car right now, because of my location and needing to take my daughter to school etc. In the past I have existed for many years without one, taking public transport, using car sharing services, Uber/taxis and occasional renting of a car for a long weekend away/ vacation etc. Without monthly car payments, insurance costs, maintenance, depreciation and (most) petrol costs it ends up being considerably cheaper. In the future I aim to once again get off the ownership bandwagon. It is extremely liberating (if occasionally restrictive) if you are able to do this. You are also helping the planet.

    • I sure do, living in rural Somerset. Uber is something we only see here on TV, public transport is fine if one bus every 3 hours is OK and you don’t mind journeys being 3 or 4 times loner than a car ride. Car sharing non existent. We’ve managed to get down from 3 cars between 3 to 2, but that only works because I’m able to work from home. I’ve just forked out over a grand to keep my car on the road – I’d be delighted to be rid of it but there’s no alternative that’s even marginally possible. Meanwhile employers are starting to insist commutes start again and just shrug their shoulders when asked about the environmental impact of the fact their nice shiny office is on a business park that has absolutely no public transport access.

      I’m a trustee for a community transport service that provides the only way that a lot of elderly or non driving folks can actually get to hospitals or supermarkets – all of which are situated on the edge of town with close to naff all access by anything but a car. We’d switch to EV but it won’t happen until rapid charging points are much more widely available.

  14. Spent the bulk of my working life in places where the public transport networks were very good or no one in their right mind would want to drive.

    Having moved back to Ireland 10 years ago, the lack of local public transport meant driving (and in my case, learning to drive) and car ownership became a necessity.

    While I do – and will continue to do – everything I conceivably can to offset my past and present carbon footprints by leading an environmentally responsible life, I can’t help but think the world’s leaders have left it too late to slow or halt the climate change crisis.

    Glad I’m not going to be here 20 years from now when the consequences of climate change evolve from what deniers now try to dismiss as”freak events” into everyday realities.

    • Yes, where I am in Ottawa it’s difficult without a car. Previously lived in Zurich for 15 years and never owned a car and only really felt I missed one when moving or on Ikea visits. Swiss public transport is a miracle though

      • Hong Kong was very good – light buses, double decker buses, subways, ferries and incredibly cheap taxis

        Jeddah on the other hand was awful. When I was there in the 80s (and maybe even now), any non-Saudi driver who got caught knocking someone over got locked up in prison until the unfortunate victim either recovered or died.

        It was generally understood that if you were the driver in such an accident, your wisest course of action was to reverse back over your victim until he was dead and drive off.

      • I’m surprised by the situation in Ottawa. My son is in Vancouver and the transport system there is excellent. There are buses covering most areas, with many services running 24/7 – and this service is backed up by a metro system and Evo cars to rent (once you have registered with the local authorities you can collect and then park and leave these hybrid cars anywhere within the city’s precincts)

        • Ottawa is a very sprawling city, for 2 years I was without a car, living downtown and working in the suburbs. The bus took about 1 to 1.5 hrs each way including at least one change. I didn’t mind the main part of the journey as I always got a seat and could listen to music, podcasts and audio books on the way.

          Changing buses and waiting for non existent ones to show up in sometimes -40C wind chill was not too pleasant though. There is now LRT (Light Rail Transit), but so far only one line which only covers a small part of the city and it has been bedeviled by problems, sometimes shutting down for weeks at a time. The consequent travel is also worse for some as they previously only took one bus to get to work, but some now need to get a bus to a train station, take the train then another bus from the end of the line. More lines are coming over the next 10 years, but an inauspicious start.

          Toronto and Montreal are much better, a proper underground train service with connecting buses. Also commuter trains to suburban regions

  16. Germany is quite progressive and we have 4 bins – blue for paper and cardboard, yellow for plastic and metal, green for food/ garden and black for anything else. No need for 7 bins, as there are other communal/civic services that fulfil those and other functions:

    4 times a year you can fly tip in front of your house and the council will collect anything (except electrical/white goods). There are bottle banks in marked places around the town, as well as textile banks and skips for large cardboard. Recently, public buildings – swimming pools/ libraries have red bins for electrical waste. And of course, there’s a deposit scheme for many bottles. We have repair cafes, tool libraries, public bookcases and now several of the parking spaces outside our house have been reserved for shared hire cars.

    All baby steps towards a more circular economy.

    • Here in France it used to be severely restricted what could and couldn’t go in the recycling bin. Now they accept virtually anything (except food waste which you drop into the village compost bin – my does that smell!) and all mixed together, plastic, glass, metal, paper, whatever.
      I would love to think there’s a state-of-the-art recycling centre nearby which separates all this out but I hae ma doots….

      • The one thing I truly hate about Italy (aside from its current government and most of its previous governments) is the litter everywhere. At least in the south and in Sardinia. It’s appalling. I know a road in Sardinia that should be one of the most beautiful little cul-de-sacs in the world to live in as it has a view of nearby mountains at one end and the nearby sea at the other. And yet it’s full of litter. And the residents don’t get together and clean it up. Drives me crazy. I used to go plogging, but since the large street bins for everything were replaced by recycle bins for every house, about five years ago, the amount of litter has got even worse and there’s no way I’m going to collect it then separate it up. I can’t understand it. Such a stunningly beautiful country spoilt so carelessly and needlessly. Both on the mainland and in Sardinia I live in pretty agricultural areas and I’ve seen how the farmers and shepherds and other local workers don’t give a feck about the natural beauty of their surroundings, they’ll happily drink a beer then throw the bottle out of the car window without a thought. Recently some cities, including Rome, have started up “Retake” groups who litter pick and paint over crap graffiti with lovely graffiti. So there’s hope. But the countryside only looks like getting worse in my lifetime unless the local authorities start spending a lot more money on refuse, which seems unlikely.

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