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Made in Britain!

I always try to buy ‘Made in Britain’ stuff if I can. I am as much a champion of home-grown goods as I can possibly be in this crazy world where buying tat from abroad often works out cheaper than buying from one’s own country. Like importing New Zealand lamb when we grow enough of our own lambs. Never did understand that one. 

Anyway, where I am going with this started a month or so ago when Shropshire Council, in all its wisdom, decided to start charging for the emptying of our green waste bin. The green waste bin is emptied once a fortnight and I usually fill it well with stuff from the garden plus all our food waste which is minimal anyway because I am very good about NOT wasting food. We have the four compost bays in the garden, of course, plus the dalek bin which manage a lot of our garden waste but it’s good to get rid of stuff in the green waste bin which might take a bit longer to break down. Like the prunings from Wild Edric, for example. And pernicious weeds.

This service had been included in the council tax charge until three weeks ago when we were told if we wanted to continue to use it, we must cough up an extra £56 a year. Now, in the grand scheme, £56 a year isn’t a huge amount. However, I immediately got into high dudgeon about this additional cost because of the principles of the matter. It’s an extra council charge or ‘daylight robbery’ as I prefer to call it. Having explored the ins and outs and do’s and don’ts on the council website I also discovered they would no longer accept food waste, they would not make a catch-up collection if they missed one due to poor weather, and if the bin was too heavy to lift, they wouldn’t take it until some of it was emptied out. ‘Pah!’ I thought. ‘If I can drag the bin to the end of the driveway to be emptied with my poor old lady arms, then a couple of burly binmen should be able to empty it, no problem.’

I decided against paying £56 and that from now on all the green waste would be dealt with by us on site. 

(The council even had the temerity to suggest we started home composting! I laughed at that one.)

To that end, and given the tree prunings we’ve made this year, yesterday I ordered a steel garden incinerator bin MADE in BRITAIN using BRITISH steel, with my purchase supporting a BRITISH company! I was well chuffed with this! 

And today, less than 24 hours after ordering, the steel incinerator arrived and here it is in action, because, quite frankly, Lord Malarkey couldn’t wait to set fire to stuff…


It certainly chucks out some heat, so if Samhain (or Hallowe’en as it is also known) proves to be a fine and dry night, I can see us sitting up the garden with soup and jacket potatoes, all snuggly warm around the incinerator bin, doing a bit of star gazing (wind and smoke conditions permitting).

I am, as they say, one very happy customer! 

Comments

Anonymous said…
I would have done what you did. Well done
KJ
23 October 2024 at 21:54
Denise said…
The incinerator has turned out to be most efficient. I’m glad I opted for the largest size, too.
24 October 2024 at 10:43
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