Households correctly sort 98% of recyclates, reveals LGA
Bearing in mind my amusement at stats that seem very precise with no real basis in fact, enhanced by tricks from my ad copywriter days, this could be 'Almost all households in the UK...'
Thing is, much as I'd like it to be true and give pats on backs all round (especially we punters), unless I am missing something key in what is measured and/or how, I simply find it hard to credit.
Then again, I guess it takes a serious level of numptietude to fail to put the glass in the glass box, the cans in the...
So... maybe.
Addendum - CRR calls into question LGA's low reject figures - Or, then again, maybe not. We are not alone.
Thursday, February 21, 2008
Fool me once
Like many, I don't usually pay too much attention to till receipts.
However, in the last few days I have had occasion to discover that this is very unwise.
Yesterday, at Somerfield I bought two bottles of wine on a deal. Despite adding booze to the basket, on getting home the total bill seemed a tad high.
On checking, I discovered there were indeed the two bottles at full price, and at the end the discount... plus another bottle at full price!
So I decided to look at Sunday's big shop at Morrisons. And, yet again, another extra entry.
Just how many donations have I made to these guys by my not having the time or necessary motivation to make sure that these scanners and their operators are accurate and/or not making duplicate passes?
Now... what are my rights for negotiating a refund? It's my word vs. theirs, especially tricky after the event. But who has time or the mental agility to track what the stores need a laser to handle and a computer to calculate.
However, in the last few days I have had occasion to discover that this is very unwise.
Yesterday, at Somerfield I bought two bottles of wine on a deal. Despite adding booze to the basket, on getting home the total bill seemed a tad high.
On checking, I discovered there were indeed the two bottles at full price, and at the end the discount... plus another bottle at full price!
So I decided to look at Sunday's big shop at Morrisons. And, yet again, another extra entry.
Just how many donations have I made to these guys by my not having the time or necessary motivation to make sure that these scanners and their operators are accurate and/or not making duplicate passes?
Now... what are my rights for negotiating a refund? It's my word vs. theirs, especially tricky after the event. But who has time or the mental agility to track what the stores need a laser to handle and a computer to calculate.
Irony, with a dash of dilemma
I've been up and watching the BBC news for about 45 minutes now as I deal with the overnight emails.
So far a potentially interesting story about the methods and motivations behind trying to effect better public behaviour in domestic recycling. And it seems that, surprise, surprise, the predominantly threat-based mechanisms touted are not quite working out, or into the systems as extensively or smoothly as they might.
Good. Well... good... ish. Something still needs to be done, and my experience that hasty, ill-conceived compromises are it. Or, as the MP select commitee has called it, 'a messy compromise'. (Where have I heard that applied to almost all in our current level of governance lately?).
Addendum 1: Just got the latest from LA on the Oscars. Seems half the BBC is now flying in to, um, 'help'. Bless.
Addendum 2: At least they are trying to offset it all, I presume, by acting as a commercial station. At least BBC Midlands. Seems someone is flogging their business, a newsagents, on eBay. Hope we licence payers get a cut of the ad revenue that has been devoted to this sale. I wonder if Aunty will help me shift my motor?
Which brings me to persuasion, preferably via inspiration and reward, which I favour.
And, by association, example.
And in this, accepting we live in a highly celebrity-influenced culture, we are surely very dependent on what our media serve us up with this as the majority of their fare, from who they talk about, how they talk about them... and, even, who we have talking at us about them.
So to help me get in the right frame of mind to cut back a tad, I have just endured a 5 minute gush about the Oscar party excesses. The dresses, the booze, the outrageous demands and incredible requirements for a one-off that will all get disposed of the next day.
I just threw that in, in-passing, as this blog was actually initiated by something else earlier.
And that was an exchange between the main presenter and the weather girl about their drives to work this morning.
Now at this time of the morning it's doubtful they have much choice and even they did, to use Tony Blair's words, 'it would be highly impractical [for them]' (though I doubt in the BBC's terms the same applies to some poor shift worker waiting for a night bus), but I just wondered where the cut off might be for such as the BBC (and others) before individual behaviour that is deemed climatically unfavourable becomes a matter for media approbrium with no sense of double standards, 'doing what we say, and not...' and all round wanting it all ways?
I can see it is tricky, but as one who sees the need for a change in behaviour yet makes big compromises on various lifestyle, cost, convenience bases almost daily, at least I don't preach what I am unable or unwilling to practice.
The medium as the messenger. But sadly, when it comes to example, too often rare in consistency and seldom well done.
So far a potentially interesting story about the methods and motivations behind trying to effect better public behaviour in domestic recycling. And it seems that, surprise, surprise, the predominantly threat-based mechanisms touted are not quite working out, or into the systems as extensively or smoothly as they might.
Good. Well... good... ish. Something still needs to be done, and my experience that hasty, ill-conceived compromises are it. Or, as the MP select commitee has called it, 'a messy compromise'. (Where have I heard that applied to almost all in our current level of governance lately?).
Addendum 1: Just got the latest from LA on the Oscars. Seems half the BBC is now flying in to, um, 'help'. Bless.
Addendum 2: At least they are trying to offset it all, I presume, by acting as a commercial station. At least BBC Midlands. Seems someone is flogging their business, a newsagents, on eBay. Hope we licence payers get a cut of the ad revenue that has been devoted to this sale. I wonder if Aunty will help me shift my motor?
Which brings me to persuasion, preferably via inspiration and reward, which I favour.
And, by association, example.
And in this, accepting we live in a highly celebrity-influenced culture, we are surely very dependent on what our media serve us up with this as the majority of their fare, from who they talk about, how they talk about them... and, even, who we have talking at us about them.
So to help me get in the right frame of mind to cut back a tad, I have just endured a 5 minute gush about the Oscar party excesses. The dresses, the booze, the outrageous demands and incredible requirements for a one-off that will all get disposed of the next day.
I just threw that in, in-passing, as this blog was actually initiated by something else earlier.
And that was an exchange between the main presenter and the weather girl about their drives to work this morning.
Now at this time of the morning it's doubtful they have much choice and even they did, to use Tony Blair's words, 'it would be highly impractical [for them]' (though I doubt in the BBC's terms the same applies to some poor shift worker waiting for a night bus), but I just wondered where the cut off might be for such as the BBC (and others) before individual behaviour that is deemed climatically unfavourable becomes a matter for media approbrium with no sense of double standards, 'doing what we say, and not...' and all round wanting it all ways?
I can see it is tricky, but as one who sees the need for a change in behaviour yet makes big compromises on various lifestyle, cost, convenience bases almost daily, at least I don't preach what I am unable or unwilling to practice.
The medium as the messenger. But sadly, when it comes to example, too often rare in consistency and seldom well done.
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