Wheelie bin entrepreneur

What to say about those Dragons? As successful self made entrepreneurs, you have to admire the skilful way they've ridden their luck to get where they are. I'm not quite so enamoured by their participation in the current egomaniacal celebrity culture, but each to their own.

So, what has this all got to do with wheelie bins? Well, Peter Jones  showed his risk taking daring-do when he invested fifty grand in a pensioner's patented wheelie bin 'Lid Lifter'. Let's hope, for Mr Jones' sake that Joe Public has got his gullibility. Don't get me wrong, I love potty inventions, but the first USP of this one is it opens the wheelie bin lid for you when you have a garbage bag in each hand. Does anyone ever take two garbage bags to the wheelie bin?

The second USP I guess is that it saves you time. Like how many thousand times would you have to open a wheelie bin to equal the time it takes to unstring and restring this gadget each time to bin men come? Good luck Mr. Jones.

Aspiring for a Darwin Award

There seems to have been a spate of inebriates who have decided to make their nests in wheelie bins recently. Unsurprisingly, several of them have woken up to the sound of their ribs being cracked one at a time by the garbage compactor.

It must be bad enough to wake up with their particular variety of hangover. Hopefully the pain in their bones is dulled by comparison.

Actually, I'm really glad that none of them, at least from this batch, have succeeded in getting a wheelie bin death on to the Darwin Award website. With any luck, they will continue to survive their binging boozy days of summer.

Wheelie Bin Wars

So the rejuvenated Telegraph decided to justifiably go to war against the incompetence and excess of our ruling elite, and how was The Daily Mail to respond to the loss of their patriotic readership?

Of course, thought some enterprising sub-editor, we will create a wheelie bin war, and take on the local council "Bin" Ladens. As it happens, in spite of our position as the leading online wheelie bin vendor, we have to admit the Daily Mail has a point about the aesthetic inelegance of serried ranks of wheelie bins.

However, having a war between the little Englanders of The Daily Mail and the bureaucrats of the councils over wheelie bins is a bit like the factions of the Mullahs in Tehran, fervently fighting over a domain of influence but somewhat missing the larger picture.

The intrepid reporter

Rather like Pol Pot, the speed fascists are getting the children young and convincing them that Jeremy Clarkson and his ilk are the spawn of the devil. In retaliation, they're plastering their anti-speed sentiments all over innocuous wheelie bins.

Of course, what they don't mention is the 99.9% of situations where people go faster than the bureaucratic rule and no ensuing mayhem occurs.

Whereas we see Jeremy Clarkson as one of the great journalists of our age, sadly we can't say the same for the hack who was dragging her way though Amy Winehouse's wheelie bin, trying to get some dirt on that tormented soul.

'Rogue binman' accused of sending abusive postcards to residents'

According to the Daily Mail, the binmen of Brighton are fighting back, threatening any residents who complain or forget to tip them at Christmas with heinous revenge.

So I guess the Daily Mail has gotten tired of telling us that we're all going to be murdered in our beds by mad knife men or that the wheelie bin police threaten our fundamental freedoms, and have progressed to the revenge of the binmen.

Next they'll be telling us we can't trust our servants...

'Bin police rummage through rubbish at dawn'

A friend of mine had a trailer stolen with £30,000 worth of products, and the police response was 'It's not worth the effort of investigating; you can claim on your insurance.'

And now we see the Home Office spending untold resources trying to cover their own incompetence and threatening the elected member of parliament, Damian Green, with life imprisonment. It makes you wonder who's serving who.

The reason we're pondering this question is that our friends from Lancashire Council are spending £60,000 per year on wheelie bin police. So tell me again, who is that bureaucracies are supposed to serve?

'Waste row binmen are barricaded'

We admire Jason Bilton's stand against the bloody-minded bureaucratically inspired jobs-worth binmen as he barricaded the street with wheelie bins in a community-spirited attempt to get them to empty his neighbour's rubbish.

At least he stayed home to fight for his neighbourhood rights instead of trying to save the world at the G20 summit demonstrations, where he might have ended up a hapless victim like Ian Tomlinson, with his reputation and termination, subject to the Met's powers of creative writing.

'Alan Cookman: Freedom of bin choice could turn us into a rainbow nation ...'

It's heartening to know that we can rely on the great British middle classes to voice what should obviously be a nationwide concern about the introduction of electric blue wheelie bins to Meir Park, Stoke-on-Trent.

They clearly have their priorities straight - they could be setting up soup kitchens for the legions of unemployed workers, but, cultural sensibilities to the fore, they're vehemently protesting against blue bins.

So much for being a rainbow nation.

'Met police tell Britons: look in rubbish bins for terrorism'

Three interesting facts about government spending caught our attention this week. We have the Met spending money on posters telling people to look in neighbour's wheelie bins to see how much drain cleaner they are throwing away. In case they might be about to build an unconventional weapon of mass destruction, and put the evidence for all to see in their wheelie bin.

We also have the Waste Resources and Action Programme (WRAP) being part of 3,000 separate publicly funded "business support schemes". To give them their due the government is trying to reduce this number, but you can bet that the bureaucracies will just recycle themselves, possibly into a new wheelie bin inspectorate.

And finally, we have Jacqui Smith's husband charging his porn expenses on her government expense account. We do appear to live in an Alice in Wonderland world.

'Why Peppy Grove is too posh to push'

We have to learn from our antipodean friends how council services should really work. Peppermint Grove is lucky enough to benefit from a wheelie bin valet service, where wheelie bins are gently extracted from their resting place and loving positioned on the curb side.

Sadly this council, which seems to have money to burn, has finally decided that this luxury is beyond even their considerable means. Of course, being Australians, the residents' response to the impending removal of this privilege was to threaten to riot.

'Drunk threw bin on to A50'

Vicky Wood, the beverages marketing manger of the Co-Op, should be proud - she's caught on to a little-known trend about the enthusiasm of alcoholics for recycling. Vicky has triumphantly introduced a plastic vodka bottle that weighs only 40 grams.

Daniel Bryson, below, who got so drunk that he attempted to wheel his recycling down the highway, will undoubtedly be grateful for the massive reduction in weight in future.

'Tough times for foxes in the UK'

We learn this week that, unfortunately and unintentionally, the introduction of wheelie bins throughout the country has resulted in a severe downturn in the dietary standards of foxes, who were previously free to rip open black plastic bin bags and dine to their hearts' content. 

The most obvious solution to this problem is to take the zealous bureaucrats, undoubtedly rendered delicious by Michelin-starred entertainment (as long as they weren't gorging at the Fat Duck) and feed them to the much-maligned foxes. This would be a neat solution to everyone's problems - not least those of Cumbrian  Gareth Corkhill mentioned in 'Has Britain become obsessed with petty-minded control...'

'Revenge of the Bin Men'

We hope your saw what Channel Four had to say on 'Revenge of the Bin Men' on Monday March 2nd. It was a classic of its kind, portraying the most extreme eccentric little Englanders through the optic of the world of wheelie bins. The producers were merciless, cutting the mildly mad to make them look utterly bonkers. 

The sanest protagonist was a former teacher who spent £475 for the pleasure and privilege of emptying his wheelie bin in Dewsbury Town Hall. While we admire his crusade against the bureaucracy, we wonder if he was the guy who taught the bankers economics. 

Wheelie Bin Traffic Signs

We hear that Cumbria's Cockermouth Council has issued stickers so that all the residents can put 30mph speed limit signs on their wheelie bins. This supposedly means that speeders will be encouraged to slow down on the days that bins need emptying.

If this scheme is introduced throughout the country then motorists will be encouraged to slow down for at least one day a week. Why stop there? Perhaps as wheelie bins can now be used to house speed limit signs, this is only the beginning of a new advertising opportunity - the era of the sponsored wheelie bin is upon us.

Pay As You Throw – The Surveillance Society – Not The Only Cost

From a selfish commercial perspective, I’m totally in favour of pay as you throw.  We supply gravity locks and demand for these grow dramatically when it costs you money if other people put rubbish in your wheelie bin.  At the moment, mostly gravity locks are used to help prevent arson in areas where wheelie bin arson is a problem. 

From a personal perspective though, I’m far from comfortable with local authorities collecting ever growing amounts of data on individuals and households. The first law of bureaucracies is that they will take any “reasonable” regulation and apply it in the most mendacious way possible. Actually that’s not the first law, the first law is more Darwinian, a bureaucracy’s primary objective is to continue its existence.  The initial problem with pay as you throw schemes will be the cost. Just imagine all those millions that we be paid to “IT consultants” to implement the systems.

Recycling Causes Global Warming?

So Mr Peter Jones, the Government Recycling Advisor says that recycling is contributing to global warming. His thesis is that it’s better to burn garbage locally than to send it to China for recycling. I wonder if he included the cost of extracting the raw materials to make the replacement items in his calculation.

Actually, if global warming (well release of CO2) is the only criteria then of course the best thing is land fill. The NIMBY’s hate landfill but even in the congested UK, it only takes a tiny fraction of one percent of the land to store all the waste for hundreds of years.

Pay-As-You-Throw Failure

Anyone who is interested will have seen that no council in the land has applied to carry out one of the five “Pay-As-You-Throw” wheelie bin pilots that the Government wanted to initiate.

Not a surprise really, the Daily Mail has demonised the whole project as a wheelie bin tax from the start. The councils and the Defra between them are blaming each other with the councils saying the Government didn’t tell them how the schemes are supposed to work. The only sensible proposal we have heard is to increase the council tax a tad and then pay it back to everyone who keeps below an average per person weekly wheelie bin rubbish load, via a discount.

Peter Jones has a rubbish idea
The Sun
The LID LIFTER fits onto a wheelie bin and does exactly what it describes - it lifts lids! Most councils have now introduced wheelie bins and it is ...

Binmen refuse to empty wheelie bin containing apples
Telegraph.co.uk
Binmen refused to empty keen gardener John Mason's wheelie bin because it contained apples which had fallen from his trees. Mr Mason, 64, cleared dozens of ...

Wheelie-bin fireraiser sparks police to action
Portsmouth News
PC Clare Parry, from the Elson beat in Gosport, said: 'There's been an ongoing series of wheelie-bin fires in the Elson district within a five-street radius ...

Wheelie rogues cause rail chaos
West Lothian Courier
Their plea follows an incident when a train travelling between Uphall and Livingston North stations struck a wheelie bin thrown on the railway line...

Man builds 'little house' for his wheelie bins
Rutland and Stamford Mercury -
An Oakham man has found a novel way to mask the unsightly line of wheelie bins outside his home - and he hopes it will catch on. Terry Hatfield, 54, of Hill ...

Scott Williams, 35, crushed to death after falling asleep in bin ...
Times Online - UK
“It is assumed that Scott, who had been out with a friend and was seen in public houses in the city until 1am on Sunday, had been in one of the wheelie bins ...

Homeless man crushed after sleeping in wheelie bin
Telegraph.co.uk - United Kingdom
A homeless man who fell asleep in a large wheelie bin has survived being crushed to the size of a cardboard box after it was emptied into the jaws of a ...

Call the police! It's Wheelie Bin Laden...acting suspiciously in ...
Daily Mail - UK
Due to the huge amount of interest this newspaper has sparked with its 'wheelie bin revolt', it seems only right and proper that we now ...

They say wheelie bins are necessary for 'health and ...
Daily Mail - UK
But for those who don't have any aesthetic objection to the wheelie bins, there are plenty of other ones. They are a boon to burglars who find clambering on ...

Thunderbirds creator blasts off over new waste scheme
Henley Standard - Henley,UK
“If you live in a terrace the wheelie bin near enough blocks the pavement,” he said. “This can cause all sorts of problems and perhaps could lead to legal ...

Wheelie getting message across
Forbes Advocate - Forbes
Residents of Forbes knew something special was happening last week, when just over 70 wheelie bins were dressed in their finery and rolled out to compete in ...

Stealing and rebuilding Amy Winehouse's rubbish ...

I figured her bins would be locked inside because she's such an obvious target, but we lucked out and there was a yellow wheelie bin with two full bags inside. When we were sure no one was looking, we picked them both up and ran to a ...

Council's bin and swiped oor wheelies
Galloway Today - Wigtownshire,UK
STUNNED home owners who had an extra wheelie bin watched in amazement this week as the additional containers were confiscated by council workers - without ...

Cost of leaving out a bin –£400
Lakeland Today - Morecambe,England,UK
Mark Davies, head of direct services, said: "While it may seem trivial to some, the problem of people leaving wheelie bins out after their refuse has been ...

'Rogue binman' accused of sending abusive postcards to residents ...
Daily Mail - UK
The local council's strict wheelie bin rules, enthusiastic bin police and £75 on-the-spot fines for people who put their bins out too early had already ...

How your wheelie bin could land you in court
Hartlepool Today - UK
SCORES of householders have been slammed with £100 fines after breaching rules on putting out their wheelie bins. Hartlepool Borough Council issued 165 ...

Bin police rummage through rubbish at dawn
Telegraph.co.uk - United Kingdom
Council bin police have been seen rummaging through people's wheelie bins at dawn, at a cost of £60000 a year. By Chris Irvine Residents were woken at ...

Fines for having your bin stolen
Lancashire Evening Post - Preston,England,UK
Council chiefs decided to impose a fee for new wheelie bins in a bid to balance the books, because it costs the authority around £80000 a year to replace ...

Waste row binmen are barricaded
BBC News - UK
A Hertfordshire man barricaded his street with wheelie bins - stopping a refuse lorry from driving off - after binmen refused to empty a bin. ...

Witness grasses on green bin burglars
Star Canterbury - Christchurch, Canterbury
It was not rubbish day but a pair of burglars made use of a green wheelie bin to rip off a house yesterday. ...

Wigan Council launch colour coded wheelie bins - Retro Yakking
By hindleyite
In the next month, all residents will receive a total of ten wheelie bins, each of standard size. Every day will be a different coloured bin collection day with Monday being blue bin day, Tuesday being magenta and so on. ...

Fresh offensive in bin bag battle
BBC News - UK
It has brought back moves, including a 50p charge for collecting side waste and refusing to empty wheelie bins which do not shut properly. ...

Deacon: The threat is not Osama Bin Laden – it’s a laden bin ...
By Jack
It featured a photograph of a wheelie bin stationed on what looked like an ordinary street. The bin was groaning with plastic bottles and other containers. I couldn’t see what their contents had been, but they were plastered with those ...

Alan Cookman: Freedom of bin choice could turn us into a rainbow nation ...
Stoke & Staffordshire
All right, that might be overstating the case somewhat, but it's hardly more inflated than the objections to Meir Park's electric blue wheelie bins. ...

How Clean is your wheelie bin? New Service for South ...
By towcesternews
A new service for South Northants is being offered by MK Bincare who provide a professional wheelie bin valet service using a specially modified vehicle to clean and disinfect your bin. The bins are not laid down in the street. ...

Marlborough's wheelie bin speed signs roll out still further
Gazette & Herald - UK
THE idea of sticking 30mph signs on wheelie bins, first introduced by police in Marlborough to help deter speeders in villages, has spread to the Pewsey ...

Met police tell Britons: look in rubbish bins for terrorism
The Observers
... the Metropolitan Police is now going further, asking residents to rummage through wheelie bins and report anyone who dares glance at a CCTV camera. ...

Why Peppy Grove is too posh to push
PerthNow - Perth,WA,Australia
The Peppermint Grove posh-set would "riot'' to defend a long-enjoyed luxury now at risk - a valet wheelie bin service. Shire president Brian Kavanagh said...

Cabinet 'secrets' in wheelie bins
NEWS.com.au - Australia
The Sunday Mail discovered two wheelie bins outside the second-floor office stuffed with documents, including submissions marked "confidential" and "Cabinet ...

Thame councillor defends micro chipped wheelie bins
Thame - Oxfordshire, UK
Thame's Councillor David Dodds has defended the district council's plans to micro-chip new wheelie bins to be introduced in June. ...

Pensioner wins fight against wheelie bins
Telegraph.co.uk - United Kingdom
A 97-year-old woman who was forced to use wheelie bins that were nearly her height has won the right to go back to using bin bags. ...

Drunk threw bin on to A50
Stoke & Staffordshire - Stoke-on-Trent,England,UK
Drunken Daniel Bryson was captured on CCTV throwing a wheelie bin and its contents on to the A50 in the early hours. After Bryson was arrested and asked ...

Redlands Liberal Democrats: Bins on pavements: progress at last
By Cllr Daisy Benson
Following my post in February about the campaign by Lib Dems and active members of the public to get the Council to take action to reduce the problem of wheelie bins left on pavements, I am pleased to report that...

Tough times for foxes in the UK
Telegraph.co.uk - United Kingdom
In the parts of the country where the wheelie bin has not yet taken over, the recession is having an adverse effect on foxes' diets. ...

Has Britain become obsessed with petty-minded control ...
By Nick
Father of four taken to court and fined because he overfilled his wheelie-bin by four inches. Gareth Corkhill from Whitehaven in Cumbria has been forced to pay £210 by magistrates, and handed a criminal record, because his wheelie bin ...

Man had 79 ecstasy pills
This is Nottingham - Nottingham,England,UK
Nottingham Crown Court heard Larvin, 20, tried to hide the tablets behind a wheelie bin when police approached him in Lytham Gardens, Top Valley. ...
 

Bin protest man in TV documentary
Spenborough Guardian - Cleckheaton,England,UK
He dragged his wheelie bin down to the Town Hall and dumped the contents into the lobby. He was prosecuted for dumping waste without a licence and given a ...

Elderly home owners must drag bins up steep hill to get them ...
Telegraph.co.uk - United Kingdom
A council has told elderly home owners they must drag their green wheelie bins more than 100 yards along a steep hill if they want them emptied. ...

Over 1000 queries about new wheelie bins
Recycle - London,UK
More than 1000 residents have contacted Calderdale Council in the past week since new wheelie bins were distributed. Some of those who called were unhappy ...

‘Wheelie bins will make streets ugly and messy’
Henley Standard - Henley,UK
A PETITION against the introduction of wheelie bins in Henley has been launched by a town councillor. The bins will come into use from June as part of a ...

Stickers target speeding drivers
BBC News - UK
Speed warning stickers for wheelie bins have been handed out in a Cumbrian town to encourage drivers to slow down. The move follows complaints by people ...

Rats not so bad...in Enfield
This is Local London - UK
Mr Neville added the introduction of wheelie bins later this year — a first for the borough — would help drive the numbers of sightings down. ...

NPTA still insist of no direct link between AWCs and rats
MRW - London,England,UK
There is still no direct link between alternate weekly collections and an increase in rat population, pest controllers say....

West Lancs councillors want residents to recycle, not throw away ...
Ormskirk & Skelmersdale Advertiser - West Lancashire,Lancashire,UK
Any item that plugs into the mains, uses batteries, or has the crossed out wheelie bin logo on it can be recycled. ...

Council bans gobbledegook
Metro - London,UK
Terms such as 'wheeled refuse container' (wheelie bin), 'enhancement works' (repairs) and 'lighting column' (lamppost) will be outlawed under Newcastle ...

Campaign to stop arson attacks
Great Yarmouth Mercury - Great Yarmouth,England,UK
RUBBISH strewn across streets and wheelie bins scattered across alleyways - it's not only a scene unpleasant to the eye but a serious fire hazard. ...

West Lancs councillors want residents to recycle, not throw away ...
Ormskirk & Skelmersdale Advertiser - West Lancashire,Lancashire,UK
Any item that plugs into the mains, uses batteries, or has the crossed out wheelie bin logo on it can be recycled. ...

Council bans gobbledegook
Metro - London,UK
Terms such as 'wheeled refuse container' (wheelie bin), 'enhancement works' (repairs) and 'lighting column' (lamppost) will be outlawed under Newcastle ...
 

Pay-as-you-throw bin charges
Daily Mail - UK
Pay-as-you-throw was designed to encourage recycling and cut the amount of rubbish householders leave out in their wheelie bins. Bin taxes, based on schemes ...

West Lancs councillors want residents to recycle, not throw away ...
Ormskirk & Skelmersdale Advertiser - West Lancashire,Lancashire,UK
Any item that plugs into the mains, uses batteries, or has the crossed out wheelie bin logo on it can be recycled. ...

Council bans gobbledegook
Metro - London,UK
Terms such as 'wheeled refuse container' (wheelie bin), 'enhancement works' (repairs) and 'lighting column' (lamppost) will be outlawed under Newcastle ...