The Nine-Bin Nightmare

This is what happens when you let the eco-zealots run your lives. Just a small taste of our future.

Families are facing a nightmare future of recycling confusion.

In a regime set to spread across the country, residents are being forced to juggle an astonishing nine separate bins.

Wait, did they use the word regime? Oh, the horror!

There has already been a storm of protest with warnings that the scheme is too complex and homes simply don't have the space to deal with the myriad bins, bags and boxes.

The containers include a silver slopbucket for food waste, which is then tipped in to a larger, green outdoor food bin, a pink bag for plastic bottles, a green bag for cardboard, and a white bag for clothing and textiles.

Paper and magazines go in blue bags, garden waste in a wheelie bin with a brown lid, while glass, foil, tins and empty aerosols should go in a blue box, with a grey wheelie bin for non-recyclable waste.

The strict regulations have been introduced as councils come under growing pressure to cut the amount of household rubbish they send to landfill.

However, they go far beyond anything previously expected from householders and families.

Retired teacher Sylvia Butler is already being forced to follow the new rules.
She said: 'I'm all for recycling and used to help educate the kids about it during my geography classes but expecting us to cope with nine different bins and bags is asking too much.'

Pressure on councils to enforce recycling schemes includes rising taxes on everything they send to landfill and the threat of European Union fines if they fail to hit EU targets from 2013 onwards.

Compulsory recycling is commonly enforced by bin police who can impose £100 on-the-spot fines for breaches like overfilled wheelie bins, extra rubbish left out, or bins put out at the wrong time.

If people do not pay the fines, they can be taken to court, where they face increased penalties of £1,000 and criminal records.

Officials in Newcastle-under-Lyme in North Staffordshire anticipated trouble when they introduced the nine-bin system last month.

They had to publish step-by-step instructions on how to fold down a cardboard box so that it fits into the green bag.

The council also put a film on its web-site in which a recycling officer demonstrates how to put a tenth container - a biodegradable liner - into the slopbucket.

If you think this stuff will never happen here, jusst wait until the next generation of Al Gores start lecturing you.

Here's a taste.



Such a charming young lad.

Newest Social Disorder: Eco-Anxiety

I blame Algore. Seriously. Without him and the nonstop tree-hugging drivel we're inundated with daily, how else would poor schleps like Sarah Edwards be driven over the edge?

The way things are going, we may need mass de-programming.

Sarah Edwards worries about the gasoline she burns, the paper towels she throws out, the litter on the beach, water pollution. She worries so much, it literally makes her sick.

"Fear, grief, anger, confusion and depression," Edwards says, pointing to the negativity that has manifested itself in real-life symptoms such as neck and shoulder pain, fibromyalgia and fatigue.

"I had so much pathos. It's so sad," says Edwards, who moved from California's crowded Santa Monica to a secluded cabin in Los Padres National Forest to help her cope.

Now, she says: "We only drive to the grocery store every three weeks. We have our own source of water. We compost and no longer heat every room on the first floor."

Edwards suffers from eco-anxiety, the growing angst experienced by those who can't handle the thought that they — or anyone — are in some way contributing to global warming, species extinction and dwindling natural resources.

She recently launched a blog called "Eco-Anxiety" because she believes environmental dangers should be taken seriously. "This is severely disturbing," she says.

How about lightening up and stop listening to the daily doom and gloom?

Experts say discussions about the environment — a growing favorite topic in the media — often focus on worst-case scenarios and ever-dwindling resources. So it's no surprise that all that bad news is taking a toll on some psyches.

But not all psyches. John Berlau, author of "Eco-Freaks: Environmentalism Is Hazardous to Your Health," said eco-anxious people need to get a life and get the facts about the environment before freaking out.

"It may put their mind partially at ease knowing that not all experts subscribe to these apocalyptic views," he said.

Things have gotten so bad, a new kind of therapy has sprouted up to keep people from going nuts over the environment.

It’s called "eco-therapy" or "eco-psychology." The time on the couch isn’t spent delving into a patient's childhood to find the source of misery. Instead, it looks at how much time a person spends in nature, the person's carbon footprint and what the individual is doing to save the planet.

And the prescribed treatment may be as simple as a dose of recycling or — you guessed it — hugging a tree.

Good grief.

H/T: Commander in Chief of Operation Chaos.

Update: Thanks to Hot Air, which has the latest global warming absurdity, for the link.