Bad ideas are a luxury and not for serious times.

This really needs to be said. When social engineers and committees and governments want to play around with bad ideas they should only do so, if they insist on doing them at all and if the people they rule over are to complacent stupid or as likely too busy to fight the increasingly oppressive bureaucracies who create them and enforce them, when times are good.

You can measure how absurd an idea is by how much it costs and the more it costs the worse the idea is. One really stellar example is ‘recycling’ which costs the USA an annual nine billion dollars a year and does some small amount of ecological harm as well. Yes that’s right. Recycling is bad for the environment but really good for glowing bloated bureaucracies. Don’t believe me? feed a few beers to any municipal environmental engineer. Really. I have done it. Recycling uses far more resources than using a modern land fill where just one truck visits each home every week instead of two or usually three or more, and the energy and materials required to sort and convert garbage into anything anyone wants is in nearly all cases with the notable exception of aluminum cans, more expensive, which means more damaging as cost is the best way overall to measure environmental damage.

Now the UK where its central bank is making the claim that its about to have the worst economic melt down in decades similar to the USA in the 1930s has chosen to expand its recycling program with trash police and microchip trash detectors.

Check this from The Daily Mail.UK

Householders who put ‘the wrong sort of rubbish’ in their bins are to face re-education visits from council officers at their homes.

They will be told how they are failing to recycle properly and will be encouraged to ‘do better’.

Bureaucrats are using microchips placed in bins to measure the volume of rubbish thrown away – and the contents may also be analysed in a search for plastic, glass or other items that should have been recycled instead.
Rubbish collection

Councils have microchipped 2million bins, allowing them to spy on how much each household recycles

Those who break strict rules will first be contacted in writing, but may be confronted by a council officer on their doorstep if they offend again.

The first council to announce such a scheme denies the new policy is a ‘Big Brother’ totalitarian-style move – but has admitted the chips could one day be used to charge householders on the volume of rubbish discarded.

Many other councils – many of which have already reduced rubbish collections to once a fortnight, leading to problems with rats and other vermin – are likely to follow with similarly intrusive schemes. Some 2million bin chips have now been fitted.

But it is the visits by council officers to suburban doorsteps that, say critics, smack of the ‘re-education’ brainwashing schemes undertaken in communist China.

Many local authorities have shied away from trialling the use of tiny microchips in wheely bins – but some environmentalists remain keen on the eventual introduction of a ‘pay as you throw’ tax, with the volume of rubbish measured by the chips determining extra tax bills.

South Oxfordshire council is currently putting the postage-stamp size chips in some 56,000 bins, and will start delivering them later this month for a programme that will begin in June.

As part of the scheme, household waste and recycling will only be collected every two weeks. Food waste will have to be disposed of in a separate receptacle, and will be collected weekly.

Householders are also told to remove labels from jars and cans.

The council is telling worried local taxpayers: ‘It’s not Big Brother. The new bins contain a microchip which has a serial number that relates to the address the bin belongs to.

‘This helps us track lost bins, as well as measuring the weight inside the bins to give us fast, accurate data and reports identifying if there are areas of the district recycling less, or throwing away more rubbish.

‘We will put a reminder on your bin if you get it wrong, and if you regularly have problems putting the wrong items in your bins, we will simply provide guidance and possibly come out to visit you.

‘We don’t intend to use the micro-chipped bins to introduce rubbish charging based on the amount of rubbish households throw away. However the Government may introduce legislation forcing us to introduce such a scheme.’

The council also suggests residents pay private companies to have their bins cleaned.

South Oxfordshire councillor David Dodds, a Conservative and the council member for environmental services, said of the scheme: ‘This will enable us to work out where recycling is happening the most and target people who are recycling less.

‘Our teams will go out and leaflet first of all, and in the end will call and say, “Are you recycling as much as you can, can we give you some advice on what you can do better?” We’re about trying to do the best for the whole community.’

But independent councillor Ann Midwinter said: ‘This is the kind of thing you’d expect from a communist state.

‘I accept that recycling is important but does the council really need to go to these lengths?’

New figures released under the Freedom of Information Act have revealed a total of 2million bins now have microchips fitted, with 42 councils involved in the schemes.

South Norfolk council cabinet member David Bills said a trial by his local authority presented many problems. Fly-tipping was said to have more than trebled after microchips were introduced.

Mr Bills said: ‘Problems occurred with reading the chips – but it is not just that, it is the fact that people will find ways of overcoming the charges, such as by fly-tipping and filling other people’s bins.’

Some of you may still think this is a good idea. Maybe you need to see this. Don’t like the source? Check the facts yourself or as I say, give a few beers to any municipal environmental engineer. Recycling is expensive, bad for the environment and a total utter waste of time and money and creates monster bureaucracies who micro manage all our lives. Of course this is far from the worst idea western democracies are toying with. Compared to ‘multiculturalism’ and all the other things www.vladtepesblog.com drones on about endlessly and daily recycling has become low on the list. But when Governments who themselves claim that they are facing massive economic crisis the time to continue to pretend that feel good expensive ideas where a city or nation converts massive amounts of real wealth into pure sanctimony. We just cannot afford it. The time to reduce government, deregulate, that’s right deregulate most of the aspects of our lives governments have seen fit to take over in the decades followingWW2, and allow people to figure out what is in their own interests is here and now.

For your viewing pleasure, I offer you the following. A truly superb episode of Bullshit by Penn & Teller on the fake industry of recycling.

And just to add one more British fascist outrage, this from the Daily Mail:

A primary school has been accused of running a ‘mealtime Gestapo’ after insisting on inspecting children’s lunchboxes for unhealthy food.

If pupils are found to have sweets, chocolate, fizzy drinks or full-fat crisps, teachers confiscate them and hold them in the staffroom.

The snacks are returned at the end of the day but only if parents ask.

One parent, Magdi Cullen, said she was shocked when her nine-year-old daughter Maria told her about the policy at Danegrove Primary School in Barnet, North London.

Mrs Cullen, 34, of Cockfosters, said: ‘When I found out about what they were doing, I thought, “This is a primary school, not Guantanamo Bay”.

‘I can’t believe that teachers go through their lunchboxes because there might be something like a small chocolate bar.

No wonder the British have such high immigration. They clearly need millions more people for garbage and lunch police.

Eeyore for Vlad.

About Eeyore

Canadian artist and counter-jihad and freedom of speech activist as well as devout Schrödinger's catholic

2 Replies to “Bad ideas are a luxury and not for serious times.”

  1. I am an avid gardener and was so excited to see the many eco-friendly, smart products available to purchase this year. I have ordered my ‘stop global warming’ rubber boots, a rain barrel, some cow pots, a trowel and a worm farm, all for the recession-free price of $655. I think Canada should adopt the U.K trash police, eco-advisory team system to educate commoners on eco-wise practices that will save the planet from sure and imminent disaster. I’m also hoping that everyone turns off all lights on March 28 to celebrate global earth day, especially those irresponsible thugs in the third world with the gal to have no electricity.

  2. There was a gardening show on here years ago. The man who did it, and he was a great gardener, said exactly the same. Recycling is a waste of time etc.
    People of course thought he was mad!

    I used to have a compost bin for veggie scraps. After I discovered it was supporting the local rat and possum population I got rid of it.

    Looks like the Brits won’t be able to do anything soon. Sad:(