Pete Posted July 21, 2019 Share Posted July 21, 2019 I live in Cumbria but nearest recycling is in Lancashire 3 miles away as opposed to 10 miles. Problem being Lancs do not take P/B without charging and one of my aims during our self-build journey is not to use a skip so decided to take a load of P/B off cuts and clean the house up a bit and not pay at my local recycle centre!!. The layout at the Cumbrian recycle centre is absolutely awful and you seem to have to go round twice to visit the various areas. I offloaded the car of P/B and then needed to go round again to go up the ramp (one car width so once on it you have to wait till the car in front has finished and then you all move on till you get to the end of the line) to go past the appropriate skips containing cardboard etc. So as I near the exit to go round again one of the workmen was just shutting the gates, saw me and opened them again and let me out. Now with hindsight I should have realised something was going to happen but no I turned to go back round again and pulled up at the IN gate(approx 100 metres away) to find the gate closed with cars pulling up behind me. What I then realised was the workmen began changing over full skips for empty ones and due to the small layout of the site no one is allowed in while they do this and thus we all waited outside. Now I do not know what people feel is an acceptable amount of time to wait but 55 minutes passed before the gate was opened again and by this time I really needed the toilet as I am a man of a certain age! SO be careful out there with the recycling issue as it can hit you in other areas! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ProDave Posted July 21, 2019 Share Posted July 21, 2019 Sometimes it seems these places are designed specifically to deter people from using them. And then they wonder why fly tipping happens. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Russell griffiths Posted July 21, 2019 Share Posted July 21, 2019 (edited) Don’t be such a skinflint and get a skip i do agree that the council system is shockingly organised, I refuse to go to them, just factor in the cost into your project, if you factor in your time a skip is cheap. Edited July 21, 2019 by Russell griffiths Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeremy Harris Posted July 21, 2019 Share Posted July 21, 2019 I'm banned from all the recycling centres in Wiltshire. The ban happened not because I was misusing their services, but because some commercially-motivated moron decided that my Prius was a "commercial vehicle", and as such I was breaking the rules by using the facilities without a permit. The reason this happened? I was clearing stuff out from our old house and made the mistake of making three trips to the recycling centre in one week. They have ANPR, and apparently my third visit triggered a lifetime ban, as I was flagged as a commercial user who was trying to fiddle the system. The really annoying thing is that, because they use ANPR, and because I have a personal plate, the ban is permanent. I can never, ever, use a Wiltshire recycling centre again. I can get around the ban for now, as the Shaftesbury recycling centre (in neighbouring Dorset) is just as close as the Salisbury one, and for now Dorset aren't checking that people using the centre live in (and hence pay Council Tax) the county (Wiltshire are implementing ID checks soon, I believe). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Russell griffiths Posted July 21, 2019 Share Posted July 21, 2019 The stupid thing is I could see that with correct Organizing they could turn it into a profitable business. Why should it be free, in Australia there was a blanket fee for any vehicle, make it cheap so you don’t care about it, so a fiver a car and £10 for a trailer. I dont have a problem with paying its the crap service I don’t like. Haven’t been to one in the last couple of years as I cannot stand the grief. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pete Posted July 21, 2019 Author Share Posted July 21, 2019 10 minutes ago, Russell griffiths said: Don’t be such a skinflint and get a skip i do agree that the council system is shockingly organised, I refuse to go to them, just factor in the cost into your project, if you factor in your time a skip is cheap. ? I have the luxury of living close to a recycling centre, have a a large site so can stagger my trips and with the cost of skips do not intend ever having one never mind skips for the duration of the build. How much have people spent on skips for their build, bet it could be a fair amount> Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pete Posted July 21, 2019 Author Share Posted July 21, 2019 2 minutes ago, Russell griffiths said: The stupid thing is I could see that with correct Organizing they could turn it into a profitable business. Why should it be free, in Australia there was a blanket fee for any vehicle, make it cheap so you don’t care about it, so a fiver a car and £10 for a trailer. I dont have a problem with paying its the crap service I don’t like. Haven’t been to one in the last couple of years as I cannot stand the grief. We are not in Australia and the chaps in the Lancs re-cycling are great guys Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ProDave Posted July 21, 2019 Share Posted July 21, 2019 The only niggle here is with a trailer, or a commercial vehicle, you have to sign a form and hand it in to declare the waste you are tipping is private waste not commercial. So my first visit with the trailer goes like this: Can I have your form please? What form? The council's form to declare that is it personal waste. Oh I didn't know about that. Give me a form please and I will fill it in. We don't keep the forms here. Where do I get the form? From the council office in town? So you want me to drive into town, find somewhere to park with the trailer, go and get the form, fill it in, then come back and you will allow me to tip it? Just go and tip your waste and bring a form next time...... An amusing one one from Oxfordshire, BIL had done some gardening. He had a 1 ton builders bag in the back of his Landrover full of garden waste. He pulls up outside the garden waste skip and starts dragging this bag out of the Landy. An operative approached at great speed "you can't tip that much". BIL points to sign that says "Garden waste, 1 car, 1 bag" How many cars have I got? How many bags have I got? Operative sulks off in a huff. BIL no longer welcome there. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Patrick Posted July 21, 2019 Share Posted July 21, 2019 (edited) @Pete Don't listen to @Russell griffiths I cleared an entire house through recycling, giving away bits on gumtree and the local council recycling centre without paying a penny. This was approx. 5-6 regular skips worth of rubbish ? Edited July 21, 2019 by Patrick 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
recoveringbuilder Posted July 21, 2019 Share Posted July 21, 2019 (edited) We started off with a skip, we couldn’t put plasterboard in it, if you wanted to do that you had to have a skip specifically for PB, at £250 a time we decided not to get one. The one we did get was quickly filled up by the builders bringing stuff from other sites, I was asked by the boss if we would be getting another one and said I suppose we’ll have to, next day a large fridge freezer appeared on site ! We didn’t get another at that point and unfortunately when we parted company with the builders we were left with the ff and various old wheelbarrows, we broke up and bagged the pb and made many journeys to the local tip a couple of miles away without any problems, we did however end up having to get another skip for the ff and wbs and everything else that had accumulated. Edited July 21, 2019 by Christine Walker Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ProDave Posted July 21, 2019 Share Posted July 21, 2019 I must be either lucky or damned good at plasterboarding (you decide) I doubt the offcuts we had added up to much more than 3 or 4 sheets in total. They would all have gone in one run to the tip, but I got rid of them slowly for no effort by other means. Anything timber gets made into something or ends up on the WBS. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
joe90 Posted July 21, 2019 Share Posted July 21, 2019 I used all my plasterboard offcuts by putting them inside the stud walls as they help soundproofing. I did ring the council about plastic waste, I told them new house and new furniture ?all wrapped in plastic, they told me the re cycling centre would not take it and suggested I bagged it every two weeks and let the dustmen take it, go figure. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mvincentd Posted July 21, 2019 Share Posted July 21, 2019 I dumped 12 builders bags of pb offcuts last week at the recycling centre at £2.50 per bag....in favour of putting them in the 6 yard skip i currently have, which would have charged an additional £100 over the standard £245 it's costing me. I've had 2 x 3yd skips and this one 6yd during my build so far. I also go to the recycling centre every couple of weeks or so, often making 2 trips in the same day. I mentioned to hem at an early stage i was self building a 'whole house' and would be along a lot.....they said no limits and have never challenged me. That's Dorset. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Thedreamer Posted July 21, 2019 Share Posted July 21, 2019 So far I've got to first fix and taken four cement bags to the tip. We don't have any neighbours around so we tend to burn any offcuts. I try and recycle as much as possible, we have couple of outbuildings where lengths of timber and other bits and pieces can be stored. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeremy Harris Posted July 21, 2019 Share Posted July 21, 2019 9 minutes ago, mvincentd said: I also go to the recycling centre every couple of weeks or so, often making 2 trips in the same day. I mentioned to hem at an early stage i was self building a 'whole house' and would be along a lot.....they said no limits and have never challenged me. That's Dorset. Dorset seems fine. We're a mile or so East of the Dorset county boundary, yet I've used the Shaftesbury centre loads of times with no problems. Pity Wiltshire are such a PITA, something that's obvious from all the fly tipping in every rural lay-by. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Patrick Posted July 21, 2019 Share Posted July 21, 2019 36 minutes ago, JSHarris said: Dorset seems fine. We're a mile or so East of the Dorset county boundary, yet I've used the Shaftesbury centre loads of times with no problems. Pity Wiltshire are such a PITA, something that's obvious from all the fly tipping in every rural lay-by. Tbh I found Wiltshire amazing. Went Trowbridge loads of time, sometimes 3 times a day. Had a chat with all the guys there to start with and try to help them out the best I can. And they let me go ahead with my stuff without any problems. Much better than my Bristol experience, where the whole staff is just extra anal about almost anything Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Weebles Posted July 21, 2019 Share Posted July 21, 2019 Berkshire have been issuing permits to residents only for a few years now so we can't use the tip in Reading. Our local tip is Benson in Oxfordshire. It has been charging for pretty much all waste (except black bags and green waste) since October 2018. I am on first name terms with a couple of the guys there having done so many journeys with black bin bags. But I haven't been blacklisted yet ? . But they don't take plasterboard. The High Wycombe tip, also less than 10 miles away, comes under Bucks. They started charging for everything from 1st April this year. I spent most weekends in March taking plasterboard and excess timber / OSB. Since then I have burned a little bit, freecycled lots of pallets and used my waste collection services carefully. Going to lose the tile off-cuts somewhere beneath the backfill around the house. Trying to minimise skips but have still had 3 plus 2 x 1 tonne plasterboard bag collections. Our tacker didn't seem to care too much about waste, and some spoiled outside in the poor weather in January. I remain horrified at how much waste is generated from building our house. At least the cardboard packaging and pallets can be easily recycled. But there is a lot of plastic packaging..... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gone West Posted July 22, 2019 Share Posted July 22, 2019 Kent CC have recently started charging at their contractor run tips for rubble, soil, plasterboard and car tyres. I think there is going to be a challenge to the charges as being illegal, don't suppose anything will come of it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Oz07 Posted July 22, 2019 Share Posted July 22, 2019 My district charges for asbestos. The one 100 yards away doesn't. As it just so happened my elderly nan in the free district needed to get rid of "her" asbestos so i decided to help. Spent 15 quid on polythene to wrap was still a nightmare. Where can you take the stuff if your in the trade and don't want all the permit palarva? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MrSniff Posted July 22, 2019 Share Posted July 22, 2019 One of the surprises here in Luxembourg was how much is recycled. We don't have a permanent local recycling centre where we live, but once a month one of the local car parks is closed and the recycling centre comes to us. There is no charge, and although my Luxembourgish is non-existent which causes some confusion, there seems to be no limit and trade waste is accepted - I think they view this as better than fly tipping. Pretty much everything is taken including, tyres, lithium batteries, old oil etc. And every sort of plastic that is recyclable is taken - rather different from my Sutton recycling centre, which takes very limited amount types of plastic - including polystyrene packaging. Seems a very good way to help people recycle more. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MJNewton Posted July 23, 2019 Share Posted July 23, 2019 (edited) On 21/07/2019 at 21:43, JSHarris said: Pity Wiltshire are such a PITA, something that's obvious from all the fly tipping in every rural lay-by. Our local Wiltshire tip (Stanton St Quintin*) is actually excellent - never had any issues there. No charging, plenty of help with bulky items, no 'guarding' of the general waste containers etc. Perhaps it's down to individuals at the site and a site-specific culture that develops (and perpetuates) as a result? * Edit: Maybe I should keep quiet about is exact location! ;-) Edited July 23, 2019 by MJNewton Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ToughButterCup Posted July 23, 2019 Share Posted July 23, 2019 On 21/07/2019 at 19:47, Russell griffiths said: Don’t be such a skinflint and get a skip[...] @Pete, Tek 'naw notice ' of that RusselGriffith' mert.... Slip bits an' bobs inter ' normal recyclin' - an' gi' 't lads a tenna now'n agin' laaaak. Works a treat here. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Carrerahill Posted July 23, 2019 Share Posted July 23, 2019 On 21/07/2019 at 19:53, JSHarris said: I'm banned from all the recycling centres in Wiltshire. The ban happened not because I was misusing their services, but because some commercially-motivated moron decided that my Prius was a "commercial vehicle", and as such I was breaking the rules by using the facilities without a permit. The reason this happened? I was clearing stuff out from our old house and made the mistake of making three trips to the recycling centre in one week. They have ANPR, and apparently my third visit triggered a lifetime ban, as I was flagged as a commercial user who was trying to fiddle the system. The really annoying thing is that, because they use ANPR, and because I have a personal plate, the ban is permanent. I can never, ever, use a Wiltshire recycling centre again. I can get around the ban for now, as the Shaftesbury recycling centre (in neighbouring Dorset) is just as close as the Salisbury one, and for now Dorset aren't checking that people using the centre live in (and hence pay Council Tax) the county (Wiltshire are implementing ID checks soon, I believe). This seems MAD! Surly this could be resolved by turning up to the tip and go and speak to someone who can "do something". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeremy Harris Posted July 23, 2019 Share Posted July 23, 2019 6 minutes ago, Carrerahill said: This seems MAD! Surly this could be resolved by turning up to the tip and go and speak to someone who can "do something". Turning up at the tip triggers automatic eviction via the ANPR system, unless I was to go there in someone else's car. What has happened when I've tried it is that I get intercepted as I drive in and asked to drive out immediately. There's no one at the recycling centres that has any authority to do anything about it, they are apologetic, but say they have to do what the system tells them. It is completely mad, and I've reported it (several times) to the council, made a fuss about it at a public event and had words with my local councillor about it. It seems that the council are powerless to intervene in actions taken by their contractor. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ProDave Posted July 23, 2019 Share Posted July 23, 2019 19 minutes ago, JSHarris said: Turning up at the tip triggers automatic eviction via the ANPR system, unless I was to go there in someone else's car. What has happened when I've tried it is that I get intercepted as I drive in and asked to drive out immediately. There's no one at the recycling centres that has any authority to do anything about it, they are apologetic, but say they have to do what the system tells them. It is completely mad, and I've reported it (several times) to the council, made a fuss about it at a public event and had words with my local councillor about it. It seems that the council are powerless to intervene in actions taken by their contractor. I would be writing to the leader of your Council, asking first what percentage of your council tax bill goes to paying for the recycling centres, and then stating you are going to reduce your council tax payments by that amount as you have been denied the use of them for no fault of your own, and you cannot afford to pay for a service that you cannot use. I wonder if you could get crowd funding to pay to take that to court? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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