Whilst parousing that stirrer of controversy The Daily Mail online (you’ve got to keep up with how middle England is thinking haven’t you) I was amused to see their slant on a Conservative party sourced item regarding a rumour that following the outcries over weekly bin collections councils may change tack by reducing the size of our bins in order to promote an increase in recycling and a reduction of household waste.
Hit me baby one more time
If this were to come to pass (and here’s the bit where The Mail stirs up the emotions of its core readers) then families (and in particular Daily Mail reading families) would not be allowed to keep the existing sized bins because this would then cause an outbreak of ‘bin envy’ amongst the neighbours (and thus the family is undermined by New Labour yet again, would seem to be the subtext). The piece then then continues with the usual ingredients for a thick soup of middle England discontent including a statement of mock outrage from Conservative party local government spokesperson Eric Pickles (great name but I’m finding it hard to take it seriously) and then slides into the potential for fines levied at waste producing families and the cost of associated quangos who administer these things.
Fighting in the streets?
Forget the arguments over the merits of recycling (The Mail piece isn’t engaged in tackling the broader arguments or offering alternatives) and that the cause of household waste is over packaging by the supermarkets, reliance of pre packaged microwave meals, the throwaway consumer culture we are all encouraged to be part of (not things that the Mail is likely to attack), this piece is a fine exercise in using FUD to whip up discontent in the readership and crowbar in a ‘family under attack’ subtext. It’s a classic Daily Mail piece that panders to the usual fears and anxieties. The core readership must be foaming at the mouth after finishing their morning paper with sheer indignation and outrage.Daily Mail reading families must be preparing for war in the streets as the rest of us envy their bin sizes, muttering in our lounge rooms at the unfairness of it all. And I guess that’s what the Daily Mail wants.
Give me strength.
OMG! That has to be the most ridiculous method I’ve ever heard of in increasing recycling! Thanks for sharing that! definite water-cooler fat to chew.
Well Damien, daft as it sounds most of us where we live have swapped our bins round so that our former 140 litre green recycle bin is now our main general waste bin whilst our former black 240 litre general waste bin is now our recycle bin. The local authority gave us stickers to relabel the bins (despite the colour coding swaparound) for the sake of our sanity (to remind us all that the green bin is now NOT for recyclable items) and the bin collection people. It’s just about hitting targets as local authorities will soon get hot hard with fines for not making the landfill reduction targets (and we’re running out of landfill space too).
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