Rubbish/Litter bins

[AMJ]

After spending the other month in Germany and Belgium you get used to seeing rubbish/litter bins on station platforms. They now have them separated espescially in Germany into 4 bins in one for recycling.

 

I got back into the UK and had bought a sandwich and had the packaging to dispose of. I looked round a large station to find not a single bin. I know that they were removed at the height of the IRA action but when I asked where the bins were I just got told to throw the rubbish on the floor a cleaner would clean it up! They claim that folks would put bombs into the bins.

 

With modern Tevlar technology it would be feasible to design a bin to withstand most blasts.

 

I think that it's a shame that we have stations with rubbish on them when you compare them to mainland Europe they are tidy by comparison.

[Edwin_m]

There are indeed designs of bin that can direct a blast upwards where it does relatively little damage. However that may not be a good idea underneath a station canopy. Also no doubt these designs are much more costly than the traditional ones, and the operator probably considers it is cheaper just to get the cleaners (who would be there anyway) to pick up the rubbish. The fact this makes the station look like a pigsty is unlikely to be a factor in these calculations!

[Kris]

Many stations now have the bin lid and hoop with a clear plastic bag attached. Lets the seagulls see the food in it to attack and spread litter about, but better than no bin at all.

[Bon Accord]

I was in Poland last week and the airport (Poznan) even had proper, non see through litter bins on the ticket/main entrance side - something you never see in the UK these days as we're all too terrified of the bogeyman.

[Mallard60022]

What must visitors think of this country (unless they of course come from an' undeveloped' nation)?

So many places are just filthy and it's the people that cause most of it. Bah!

I've been to many other countries where some areas look untidy (parts of Greece, Ukraine, Poland, even Germany) however I think the ethic is different in so many places; people just don't seem to chuck stuff on the ground.

So what is it about the Swiss that makes them so tidy and organised?

Fortunately there are some places in the UK where littering is not tolerated ( and then people whinge that their rights are being violated) and other areas where folk with pride, keep their area/village clean, but most towns and Cities are like a s**t heap.

In 36E it is really horrible and so much of the junk is food wrappings and it's all ages that don't give a toss.

At a local sec school they have two rubbish clearers that do the grounds after lunch. Why are the little **** allowed to chuck it all over in the first place; beats me.

Got my coat already..........

P

[unravelled]

At my local station, Brockley, Overground provide pairs of clear plastic bags on hoops. One for recycling, one for rubbish. I can't remember the exact labelling but I guess it will match the local authority recycling collections.

 

Dave

[45156]

I remember the removal of the bins from the mainline stations, and the timing sort of coincided with the introduction of much more fast "food" (who remembers Casey Jones burgers) and with an increase in the amount of packing on the traditional railway sandwich, and ever since then, we have had to catch a train in something closely resembling the Corporation tip. Also, nowadays most station coffee even in the sit down buffet, is served in paper cups, and in the past, if you sat in, you got a china cup which they then took away and washed. Wow - this is progress!!!

[TheSignalEngineer]

There are indeed designs of bin that can direct a blast upwards where it does relatively little damage. However that may not be a good idea underneath a station canopy. Also no doubt these designs are much more costly than the traditional ones, and the operator probably considers it is cheaper just to get the cleaners (who would be there anyway) to pick up the rubbish. The fact this makes the station look like a pigsty is unlikely to be a factor in these calculations!

 

It's easier for the station operator to sweep it on to the track, as I have seen on numerous occasions, then it becomes someone else's problem.

[Bon Accord]

Regarding bins, I recall that Edinburgh Waverley/surrounding stations had a new type of fashionable metal, presumably standard Regional Railways/Scotrail stype bin fitted (eliptical I think). Anyway they were installed, test fitted and then the actual bin removed with only the framing left as they were deemed a security threat. These bins were never replaced and the framing for them can still be seen on many Scottish station, but sans bin. What a complete waste of money.

[Colin_McLeod]

A quick Google produced this: Link to advertisment

 

Of course if there is already a pile of litter on the station, who needs a bin to hide the bomb? Just put it in a paper bag and set it on the ground.

[Glorious NSE]

Depends very much on the TOC and location - some TOCs are very good, Overground has already been mentioned and they seem to have bins (clear plastic bags) at all their stations, including the green (paper) recycling which is nice.

 

At any unstaffed stations you're unlikely to find a bin at all.

 

It might be that at the very largest stations it is indeed easier to pay a fairly large cleaning staff to be on hand all the time than deal with the risks any other way.

 

There should be bins on the majority of trains though, albeit sometimes you might have to go looking for it!?

[45156]

There should be bins on the majority of trains though, albeit sometimes you might have to go looking for it!?

......and when you do, it's probably already full to the brim.

[Kris]

At any unstaffed stations you're unlikely to find a bin at all.

 

 

As with everything there are exceptions. The unstaffed station I use most frequently (Ivybridge) has bins (well hoop and bag) on each platform. Whether these are provided by First (station operator), by the friends of the station or by the local council I don't know. They are emptied frequently though even though they rarely have much in them.

 

 

[Colin_McLeod]

They are emptied frequently though even though they rarely have much in them.

 

Cause and effect?

[Glorious NSE]

Cause and effect?

 

To some extent - but Ivybridge isn't that busy a station so will get much less deposited than some other places...

[Merfyn Jones]

I have noticed in the last few week that my local TOC, Arriva Trains Wales has begun announcments on the trains advising customers to put all litter in the bins provided, on trains or at the station when they alight. Of course ATW bins are absent at the stations !

Merf.

[Richard E]

......and when you do, it's probably already full to the brim.

Or been emptied into clear bags which are then left in the train doorways so that you have to climb over them to get in and out of the train as East Coast do.

[ess1uk]

Or separate bins for general use and a recycling bin that the cleaner takes out and then empties both into the same bin

[Michael Hodgson]

10 minutes ago, ess1uk said:

Or separate bins for general use and a recycling bin that the cleaner takes out and then empties both into the same bin

 

Makes little difference if the council are doing the same, as ours did for 3 months because of some problem at their recycling facility.  They mysteriously managed to fix it when somebody grassed them up to the local rag.

[Chris116]

I am still trying to work out why it is so dangerous to have bins in stations but safe to have them on trains that could be going at up to 125mph.

 

Not having bins at stations just creates a dirty environment but then my local council removed bins from most bus stops in the area as they needed emptying to often and now wonder why they have dirty streets!

[Wheatley]

The order (from BTP) to remove bins at stations came after a passenger was killed by a bomb in a bin at Waterloo, and was re-issued after the Warrington bombing when a child was killed by a town centre bomb in a bin. In both cases shrapnel from the metal bin was a factor as well as the ease of hiding the bomb in the first place. After the Good Friday Agreement it became the subject of long running correspondence between Stuart Baker, then Ops Director of RRNE/Northern Spirit, and BTP, as was the BTP budget generally. Stuart was particularly fond of taking photos of bins outside BTP jurisdiction but within known terrorist targets and sending them to BTP, in particular I recall him sending photos of bins at Belfast Central and asking them to explain why it was OK to have them there when (at the time) he still wasn't allowed to put one at Goxhill. 

 

The rules were later relaxed hence the hoop and bag design. Whether a station has these or no bins is down to the TOC's own risk assessment, and some may find it more cost effective (on paper and in the fantasies of their bean counters) to pay someone to sweep up rather than pay them to empty bins. 

Edited December 31, 2021 by Wheatley

[phil-b259]

15 hours ago, ess1uk said:

Or separate bins for general use and a recycling bin that the cleaner takes out and then empties both into the same bin

 

I have heard that this is sometimes down to the type of waste contracts issued.

 

The first issue public expect recycling bins these days and any company which doesn't have them is 'seen' in a negative light.

 

The second issue is most waste contracts that are issued on a 'pre-sorted' waste basis have stiff penalty clauses in them should the 'wrong' waste get put in the wrong load (NR get stung for this quite a lot when general waste / batteries / oil filled metal stuff gets put in 'metal recycling' skips).

 

As such its usually far more cost effective for the business to actually pay the waste contractor to do the sorting, therefore simplifying the whole business of providing bins for the public / staff - who are either too lazy or too confused (given the way local authorities have vastly different requirements across the UK when it comes for what goes in what bin / box) to dispose of the waste correctly.

 

Therefore its quite possible for a company to have someone empty both a 'recycling bin' and a 'general waste' bin into the same container yet the recyclables still get split out again at a later stage.

 

The one downside of this is of course contamination (e.g. paper based items disintegrating because a half empty coffee cup leaks over them while in the same container) which may mean the amount of 'recycling' possible is reduced compared to if things were kept separate throughout.

 

IIRC Southern have a waste contract which separates out recyclables from general waste at the waste contractors depot so there is no need to have more than one type of bin on trains or stations.

 

[phil-b259]

On 30/12/2021 at 23:19, Michael Hodgson said:

 

Makes little difference if the council are doing the same, as ours did for 3 months because of some problem at their recycling facility.  They mysteriously managed to fix it when somebody grassed them up to the local rag.

 

I suspect thats down to cost.

 

Sorting recycling is expensive and labour intensive (hence the push for householders to do it) plus it increasingly requires complicated / expensive laser scanning machines to separate stuff like the different grades of plastic.

 

However like all materials - the price the recycled waste will fetch will vary depending on free market commodity prices. A high oil price might mean more folks look at using recycled plastic instead of new oil thus increasing demand. Conversely a lowering of oil prices will make the economics fall in favour of moving away from recycled plastic and lowering demand.

 

The upshot of all this is that sometimes councils end up selling recycled materials at a loss - something they can ill afford to do what with decades of budget cuts from Westminster.

 

Therefore if your sorting machine breaks down or you are having staff trouble, simply diverting recycling for incineration / landfill (and thus not needing to keep it separate may well work out as the cheapest course of action.

 

 

Ultimately though the biggest problem (as usual for the UK) is an obsession with outsourcing such stuff to market forces! A practice which has allowed all sorts of cowboy outfits to hoover up UK produced waste and dump it on other countries around the globe!

 

What we should be doing ins BANNING the export of ALL WASTE from these shores and thus push forward the need invest in building the facilities here in the UK to deal with our own waste - with Government subsidies being used to ensure that a low market price is NEVER a bar to recycling.

Edited January 2, 2022 by phil-b259