Battle of the bins

When I first encountered the wheelie bin, I thought it "a pretty neat idea." I came from a county that still used dustbins. Dustbins were heavy to move and their lids clattered. So a relatively quiet bin on wheels that I could simply wheel to the weekly collection point was a helpful innovation.

From time to time I worried about recycling and carried paper, bottles, cloth and cans to recycling points. I didn't do that as often as I'd have liked, because things to be recycled were heavy and awkward. Recycling points seemed to be located for the benefit of drivers. Fortunately charities sometimes went in for recycling and volunteered to visit and take the paper, glass and so on away.

The council decided to promote recycling. I bought a composter and fed it vegetable peelings and coffee grounds. These emerged, remarkably, as good earth. I did so little gardening that the composer was always in surplus but composting seemed the right thing to do.

Then the council got tough about recycling. There were targets and league tables and our council wanted to be seen to do its bit. Every household was provided with a green bin for recycling and given a list of what could be put in it: cardboard, paper, envelopes, cans and the right kind of plastic. I studied the list and did my best.

There were problems. Weekly collections were at an end. The green (recycling) and black (general rubbish) bin had to be put on the pavement on alternate weeks. Failure to put a bin out could mean a 4-week accumulation of rotting rubbish - and a stench. And, big as the bins are, there isn't enough space when re-organising the house and getting rid of rubbish. We're told to take excess rubbish to the local dump - but there's a proviso: pedestrians aren't allowed. The new recycling regime is determined that everyone should have a car.

Of course, I can ring the council and arrange for large items to be collected, and I plan to try that this week as my daughter and her boyfriend, despite numerous assurances, have failed to move her old bed to the dump - and it's rather unsightly in the garden. But I'll have to pay to have it taken away and I fear I'll be required to be at home rather than work so that this can be achieved.

Still, we're lucky with our binmen. They are friendly, cheerful and on one occasion, when I asked, they let me refill the bin with extra rubbish. They're an energetic, helpful crew and remind me of my Uncle John who became a dustman when he stopped working at the docks. He liked active, outdoor work.

Elsewhere, according to the press, binmen have become tyrants, egged on by the councils that employ them. There are story of binmen refusing to take bins that are too heavy in case they fall from the lifting device on the lorry. People in rural areas - including a woman of 79 - have been told that their homes are too remote for rubbish collections and that they must wheel their bins down long country lanes. Fines can be imposed for putting rubbish in the wrong bin. One man was fined £210 because his bin wasn't properly shut. And there are many such reports from all over the country.

We're told that the latest bins are microchipped, though I'm not sure how the microchip will work. Will it be weighing the waste, or photographing it to keep a record of who throws away what rubbish? The plan seems more like science fiction than real life.

I'm particularly alarmed by the story of a mother who put her bin out the day before collection and was fined £265. The local rule says that bins should not be left out before 7.30 a.m. on the collection day. I don't know what I'd do if a rule like that came in here. I'm always in a rush in the mornings and often have to leave home before 7.30.

None of this is the fault of the binmen, who work for long hours in all sorts of weather and aren't paid particularly well. The problem seems to lie in the councils' attitude to people. Too many councils - like government - take a punitive approach to problems. They shout the same cliches: "get tough", "name and shame", "zero tolerance." One council has designed a questionaire asking all sorts of questions about the rubbish produced by each family - and requiring every household to nominate an individual who will take legal responsibility for the bin.

Recycling used to be something that people did voluntarily. I remember mums, dads and other carers happily loading bins with paper for recycling so that the local primary schools could get more funds. I recall the long queues for reduced-price composters, on a one-day only offer from the local council. And there's still some pride left in living lightly - fabric and jute shopping bags have taken off, even if it's hard to get into the routine of carrying a strong bag at all times.

The punitive approach of government and councils has damped my keenness for recycling. It's no longer a project in which everyone is engaged but a mechanism for controlling people's lives and telling them off. (Sometimes, when I hear the scolding voices of local and national politicians, lines from V for Vendetta come to mind.) I know the problems of landfill and I'd like, if it's not too late, to do my bit for saving the planet. But when councils and governments target households for the rubbish they produce, are they starting in the right place?

How much waste is a result not of careless householders but of profligate supermarkets? I can refuse plastic bags but not the excess packaging. I can't remember when I first saw blister packs but I don't think they'd been invented in my childhood and they certainly hadn't taken over the aisles of supermarkets and stationery shops. I don't know why special offers - on beer, baked beans, etc. - so often include an extra layer of plastic packaging. We're encouraged to save more by being less green.

Why aren't governments and local councils turning on supermarkets and other chains of shops that offer over-packaged goods? Are companies more important to them than people - with votes?

East Midlands Trains and the duty of care

When I was growing up, I felt secure travelling by tube and train. It helped that my dad worked for London Underground, mending the trains. Books like The Railway Children helped too. (Somehow I skimmed over the end of The Last Battle, even though I was a C.S. Lewis fan.) We had - or rather, my brother had - a train that went on a track past platforms and grass and trees. It was a wonder, with scenery constructed by Dad from kits and papier-mache.

I wanted my children to travel by trains too. It helped that we lived near a station and that trains were the quickest and cheapest way to town. As the children grew older, I bought them their young person's railcards and was anxious when they made their first train journeys alone. Children need to learn to travel independently. Earlier this year my son, who is now 16, went to London by train on his own to meet friends. Last weekend he was booked into a Quaker event. I saw him off on the train and gave him written instructions about the underground train he needed and where he was to meet the others. While he was on his way, he rang to check he was going the right way - and he sent me a text to say he'd arrived safely.

When I was my son's age, I knew the important rule of travelling alone. My parents told me, "If you lose your ticket, tell the guard and give your name and address." Of course, things have changed now. They should be easier since the internet makes it possible to buy tickets on-line.

I bought my son's ticket on-line using the East Midlands Trains website. That let me collect his tickets and seat reservations at my usual station - and I checked they were safely tucked in the wallet with my son's railcard. After all, they cost nearly £34.

But on Monday evening my son rang. He'd got his seat reservation but somehow he'd lost the return half of his ticket that went with it. And the people at St Pancras wouldn't let him on the train. To make things worse, the battery on his mobile phone was dying.

My son doesn't look any older than 16. He'd said goodbye to the organisers of the event and was alone in London with his suitcase and guitar. He didn't know what to do.

That's when I rang East Midlands Trains. I asked if someone could let my son on the train, offering to get a train part-way and join the same train so that I could pay the excess to the train staff. No, I couldn't do that. I asked if I could pay his fare by credit card so that he could get the train. No. So what could I do, given that my teenage son was stranded in London? I could go to my local station and ask the ticket office to help. It was a bank holiday evening and, although trains were still running, the ticket office was shut. The man on the phone gave me another number that might help, but warned me I'd have to pay full fare plus a £10 penalty charge.

It had gone 7.00 and the last train back left London at 8.30. I found someone else to ring the number and buy the ticket, hoping that my son, now without a working mobile phone, had heard my last advice to stay by the ticket office. I headed by train to Leicester. I could perhaps get help there and, if nothing else worked, I could get a train to London and stay there with my son. By this time I was very anxious.

Apparently the new phone number was useless. Someone had to reach a mainline railway ticket office to organise a replacement ticket - and it cost £73.50. Luckily my son was by the ticket office at St Pancras as required (my advice was based on guesswork). He was able to take the ticket and run for the next train. Meanwhile I was in Leicester and, although I knew a ticket had eventually been bought, I didn't know which train my son had caught. The station manager at Leicester was helpful and sympathetic. He contacted St Pancras and even found out which train my son had boarded. I waited to meet him for the return journey.

Accidents happen. People lose tickets. Younger, less-experienced travellers are more likely to have problems. But they need to learn independence.

Under-18s don't have credit cards to pay for new tickets. They are unlikely to have much money with them. My son got back safely only because it was possible for someone to drive to a mainline station (I don't have a car) and pay a large sum of money on my behalf by credit card.

Not everyone has a car.

Not everyone has a credit card - or enough money to pay a huge excess fare.

What would have happened if my son had planned to catch a later train? It took more than two hours to arrange for his return journey.

The East Midlands Trains staff I spoke to by telephone had no helpful advice to offer. They reckoned it wasn't their problem if a 16-year-old, still at school, was stranded in London, 120 miles away. It was his problem - and mine.

What would have happened if it hadn't been possible to pay the £73.50 East Midlands Trains demanded for a one way fare? I suppose my son would have been left to beg, or hitch, or sleep rough at the station. I wonder how many young people are forced into this position.

I'm told that in other countries, people have a legal duty of care for one another. Here the only duty of care seems to be for company profits. Train tickets used to be checked by the train guard - a comforting name that suggested he looked after passengers as well as the train. These days the people checking tickets have different titles: they are train managers and revenue protection officers.


It's nearly a week since I e-mailed East Midlands Trains to complain. No-one has replied. I'm not surprised. I've e-mailed East Midlands Trains before. It can take months to hear from them - if they reply at all.