Recycling rubbish and charity shops - something of a minefield? Ongoing discussion

[whole diary]

[Marlburian]

Earlier this year I bought a new microwave from John Lewis and understood from the company website that it would take my old one for re-cycling. Not so, said the salesperson.  My council offers some sort of limited collection service for heavier items, but it's always fully booked.

Then I discovered that Curry's would accept that sort of thing, even if it hadn't been purchased from them, and would even give a £5 voucher (IIRC^▸ ('if I recall/remember/read correctly')) against a purchase.

A week after I'd handed in my microwave, another one was fly-tipped close to my house. For a while, no-one did anything about it, though my neighbour said that he'd reported it to the council. Eventually I took it to Curry's - for another voucher.

[Chris from Nailsea]

Here in Nailsea, we have the benefit of a latter-day Steptoe & Son, who drive along our road every week in their pickup truck with a loudhailer asking for 'any old iron?'

They aren't choosy - any scrap metal will do (I noticed that the only thing they didn't want was a neighbour's old fridge/freezer).

We don't have to do anything, other than put our unwanted metal items out on the drive, where they can be seen from the road.  Even if we don't hear the loudhailer (unlikely), they will come to the front door, just to confirm, "Is that to go?".

Recently, we updated our cooker and removed a redundant overhead extractor fan unit. My daughter and I will put those out on the drive and see how long it takes Steptoe & Son to snap them up. 

[johnneyw]

It's a similar story to CfN^▸ (Chris from Nailsea, an administrator on this forum)'s with me.  In the wider Johnneyw Towers locale there seems to be a fairly regular lorry that goes around picking up scrap metal.  Items picked up from my drive over the years include an old TV^▸ (Thames Valley, or TeleVision, depending on context) Ariel, worn out wok and other pots and pans amongst other things.  It seems to be the same outfit that covers not only Redland but a fairy wide area.

[plymothian]

I was under the impression that scrap dealers had to be licenced now, and there needed to be a paper trail of where they obtained stuff therefore, they can't allowed tout for business anymore.

[grahame]

I was under the impression that scrap dealers had to be licenced now, and there needed to be a paper trail of where they obtained stuff therefore, they can't allowed tout for business anymore.

We have one who visits Melksham too.  I don't think there's any problem about touting for business - just that they have to be licensed to pass in afterwards, and perhaps have to complete loads of paperwork for each pickup.

[Chris from Nailsea]

An update on charity shops, from the BBC^» (British Broadcasting Corporation - home page):

'We made charity shops look like designer stores'

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Charity shop manager Ashira Zaneb decided to completely abandon the traditional layout of her store in Greater Manchester for something resembling a designer shop.

The interior design graduate said she want the shop in Northenden to become the kind of place she would choose to visit, and as a result, customers have told "they have never been in a shop like it".

It is part of a growing trend to rebrand the shops which often dominate high streets depleted by established retailers facing spiralling overheads and fierce online competition.

Nora Masefield had no idea she was walking into a charity shop when she entered the doors of a newly-rebranded store in the square of the small historic market town of Poulton-le-Fylde in Lancashire where she lives.

The shop, called Attire and run by Blackpool-based Trinity Hospice, has a prime spot for footfall and specialises in items like high-end menswear and books.

"It's quite urban. It's quite funky. So a lot of people like it because it doesn't look like a traditional charity shop," said Paul Guest, the hospice's head of retail and volunteer services.

An impressed Nora said, as she surveyed an interior which looked like it was set for a photo shoot for an upmarket style magazine, "I didn't know what it was at first, I was pleasantly surprised".

She added: "It looks nothing like the average charity shop - they used to look like jumble sales."

Mr Guest said the aim was to create an "urban masculine" look for the shop, with many props on display "to keep that ambience".

(BBC news article continues)

[Chris from Nailsea]

From the BBC^» (British Broadcasting Corporation - home page):

North Somerset Council secures refund for faulty recycling bags

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Residents were given faulty recycling bags that rapidly faded and ripped

A council has said that it has been given a refund by a company that supplied thousands of faulty household recycling bags.

Residents in the North Somerset Council area were issued with red bags for their plastic and metal waste in March, following a successful trial in November 2024 that aimed to boost recycling. But there were complaints from residents as many of the bags were found to have faded in the sun and were "falling apart at the seams".

Councillor Annemieke Waite said the unnamed company had admitted responsibility for the issues. She added that the authority had reached a "very good agreement" with the supplier and the cost of the faulty bags would be refunded.

The council trialled the bags with 6,000 households last year. Although it received a positive outcome, some residents said the bags were too large. Ahead of the council-wide rollout in March, a batch of smaller bags were ordered from the same supplier and it appeared to be these that deteriorated quickly, said Waite.

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Red bags were distributed to residents for plastic and metal waste

She added: "We know that the people who actually had the original bags are still very pleased with them and those bags have never deteriorated, have never faded. So we absolutely know this is something that was completely beyond our control and it was just down to the quality of the bags that were delivered in the second batch."

Residents can order replacement bags on the council website, but are warned that the new bags would come from the same faulty batch, according to the Local Democracy Reporting Service.

[Marlburian]

Sometimes I examine the contents of redundant telephone kiosks that have been turned into book exchanges and usually find a book or two that I want to read. If I know I'll be passing one, I might take a couple of books with me to leave, though I usually select  those that are a little grubby, donating the better ones to charity shops.  I'm usually scrupulous about the swop: two paperbacks for one hardback, say.  Sometimes there's a discrepancy: currently the box (not a kiosk) in Purley-on-Thames owes me one, and I owe one to the kiosk in Hampstead Norreys, though when I "confessed" the latter to a former parish councillor who can be a little peremptory he said not to worry as there would be plenty of donations after Christmas.  Once when I was rummaging in the box at Purley a resident walked past and said he'd always wondered what was inside it. (It's on the verge of a side street and is made of wood with a felt-covered lid; some of the contents are a little damp.)

In Whitchurch-on-Thames the kiosk includes a container for used blister packs, with a request for anyone going into Reading to take a handful to leave with Superdrug.

[Chris from Nailsea]

Rather more of a minefield than recycling?  From the BBC^» (British Broadcasting Corporation - home page):

Bomb squad called after 'ammunition' handed in to Swindon charity shop

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The 'military ammunition' was reportedly handed in to a charity shop in a small bag

A large section of a retail park was temporarily evacuated after suspected ammunition was reportedly handed in to a charity shop.

The items, believed to have been donated in a small bag, were handed into the Cancer Research UK^▸ (United Kingdom) store at the Greenbridge Retail Park in Swindon earlier.

The items have since been taken by bomb disposal experts for testing and a cordon, set up around the building at 10:30 GMT, has since been lifted.

The Cancer Research UK store is expected to remain closed for the rest of Tuesday.

Wiltshire Police said: "The rest of the retail park remains open as usual."

Around five pieces of ammunition were reportedly handed in at the shop, with four of the items being 7.62mm - the standard size for many military small arms munitions.

A fifth item is thought to be a much larger type of round.

[Mark A]

Who among us hasn't, as a child, looked up warily at the unexploded bomb on a friend's grandmother's mantlepiece?

Mark

[Chris from Nailsea]

That's reminded me of one of my own family memories, Mark.

I was quite young (maybe six or seven) when we went to visit a farm near Wheddon Cross on Exmoor for a sort of reunion - my maternal family were evacuated there during WW2, a generation earlier.

Looking up at the chimney piece above the range in their kitchen, I was enthralled at the sight of a real gun (probably a 14 bore, single barrel) hung on hooks there. Seeing this, the farmer lifted it down for me to handle - and, I recall, he did explain that he was making sure it wasn't loaded: apparently, Mrs Farmer used it to stroll out into the fields to collect a rabbit or two for the pot.

[broadgage]

My late grandfather had an impressive sized naval mine in his garden, I presume that it was rendered safe.
My late uncle had an impressive and presumably illegal collection of firearms and ammunition.
And much more recently, an agricultural contractor whom I know found a large stash of WW2 weapons, suspected to be intended for use in "behind the lines sabotage" if the germans had invaded. Included a number of Welguns.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BSA_Welgun

[Marlburian]

For several days there's been a bit of yellow rubbish in the hedge opposite my house. When I put out my red recycling bin this morning, I peered at it and discovered it was an admonition about the wrong items being put in a bin - from Herefordshire Council,  a hundred miles away. (I conscientiously put it in my black bin.)

(Earlier this week, I did an 80-minute perambulation of Tilehurst and was shocked about the amount of litter, mostly recyclable.)

[Mark A]

That's reminded me of one of my own family memories, Mark.

**snip** Looking up at the chimney piece above the range in their kitchen **snip**

That's put me straight into anecdote mode: the tale told to me by the signwriter who, as a child, had been evacuated to... Woodford Halse... and an encounter with a farmer led to an... intervention... but I'll have recounted *that* one.

Mark