Tag: waste

December 11th – The waste fridge problem continues. Spotted in Shelfield this morning on the way to work, this could have been waiting for a bulky waste collection by the council, or more likely, left out for tatters (scrap men) by a householder. With scrapyards now unable to take fridges and freezers due to them being classed as hazardous waste, the tatters have just stripped the valuable electrical parts – the motor, condenser and wiring – and left the rest. Such discarded whitegoods are flytipped in lay-bys, country lanes and industrial estates. 

If this was left for an arranged bulky collation, great. If not, it could stay where it is for weeks. This is a reflection of what happens if waste laws are tinkered with without consideration.

Please, please, please – dispose of this stuff properly. Travelling tatters will not. By leaving stuff out for them, you’re exacerbating illegal dumping and metal theft.

October 30th – The flytipped fridge problem continues. Recently, the law changed and scrap yards can’t accept old chiller appliances, which must now go for specialist recycling. Sadly, people are still leaving them out for scrap men, who strip the easiest to separate metal parts, and flytip the rest.  Dumped fridges and freezers are currently a huge issue for local authorities all over the country.

When you leave stuff out for the tat men, you are encouraging this scumbag behaviour – please don’t do it.

These are in Green Lane, Walsall Wood, just past the houses beyond the Black Cock pub, just pushed off the back of a vehicle into a lay-by.

This is what happens if you fiddle with waste disposal legislation without thinking through the consequences.

October 8th – Today, I cycled past Rod, the Walsall Wood angler. I’ve never been fond of this artwork, even though it is modelled on David Evans, local character and contributor to my main blog. Rusting so badly now that the writing can barely be discerned, Rod had his copper fish stolen some time ago.Since then, wags have hung alternative objects from the angler’s pole, namely a gold wellie boot and olympic rings. Rod is symbolic of the fortunes of the Wood; unveiled in a public artwork binge ostensibly to record the village’s mining past, he sits corroding, while the real mining memorial – the original Oak Park – also decays.

July 17th – Further up the road in less salubrious Tyseley, the incinerator that destroys Brum’s non-recyclable rubbish is still running flat out. A workmate said the other day that he hadn’t seen it running for weeks. I pointed out that you only see vapour from the flues in colder temperatures. The incineration is so thorough that very few visible particulates remain in the fumes generated.

The huge furnaces of the waste (sorry, ‘energy recovery’) plant overlook the lost gem of Hay Hall, hidden amongst warehouses and back-street lockups. This is why I love Birmingham: jarring contrasts around every corner.

April 26th – Have you recently employed a cheap plumber to refit a bathroom? Perhaps you’ve done the job yourself, and paid someone a few quid to remove the rubbish?

If you’re wondering what became of your bog and fittings, they are currently adorning a lay-by on Northfields Way in Clayhanger. They aren’t doing much for the area, to be honest.

Flytippers are scumbags. People who turn a blind eye for a cheap jack job are as bad.

February 23rd – Evidence of subterranean systems of an altogether more sinister nature can be found dotted around the borderlands of Walsall Wood, Shelfield and Aldridge. These odd enclosures – one in the fall towards the marl pit by the Brickyard Road canal bridge at Stubbers Green, and the other, on scrub near the end of Dumblederry Lane in Aldridge, are grim reminders of what lies beneath. They are access boreholes to the mine workings beneath, filled with millions and millions of gallons of toxic waste, dumped there after the mines closed. The dumping, over the course of a couple of decades, was freeform and barely regulated. The current operators of the site from which this dump is accessed manage it carefully. The boreholes, of which there are a number, are fenced and secured for obvious reasons. The one at Dumblederry lane has a breather valve fitted, to vent gas safely into the atmosphere.

November 5th – On a cold morning in Tyseley, the euphemistically named ‘Energy Recovery Facility’ – or in plain English, refuse incinerator – can be seen operating at full tilt. People think that’s smoke emanating from the flue, but it’s not, the plume is steam condensing in the cold air. This facility has twin furnaces, and generates enough electricity to power the local area. Burning refuse is a 24 hour operation, and feeding the voracious appetite of the incinerators are a constant flow of lorries, which give the whole district a characteristic smell. Unsavoury, but necessary.

March 6th – I was very angry about this. Over the last week or so, I’ve watched workers from the council clear up the Kings Hill end of Victoria Park in Darlaston. They cut back the trees and scrub, swept all round and even pulled all the rubbish out of the marsh. It looked better than I’ve seen it for years. What do I find this morning? A fly-tipped armchair. What kind of selfish tossers do this? I hope their balls drop off, I really do. Those guys worked hard for the benefit of your community and this is how you repay them. You’re nothing but scum.

August 20th – A late afternoon ride to keep the legs moving after a tiring morning at work. I spun around Chasewater, then headed down through Burntwood to get some stuff from Waitrose in Lichfield. On the way, I passed the former old people’s home Greenwood House, near Swan Island. Empty and decaying, this modern, well loved facility was closed by Lichfield Council as part of their hated ‘Changing Lives’ project, created solely to farm social responsibility onto the third sector and offload all those expensive vulnerable people into the community. This building has been empty for over two years now. An utter waste. Welcome to the social state in the UK in 2011. Utterly bankrupt, both financially and morally.

August 10th – My dislike of the Walsall Wood pithead sculpture is well known and somewhat controversial. I actually think that it’s not only aesthetically dreadful, but badly engineered and ill thought out. In the construction, there’s a random mix of stainless steel fasteners and normal ones, which stands out; looking at the frame there are multiple sets of holes that appear to have been redrilled, but this may be intentional. The sign commemorating the pit seems to face the wrong way, and cannot be read from the road, whilst the construction is topped by a pennant bearing the initials NCB, for the National Coal Board. The NCB never actually operated the pit, but oversaw it’s closure, which shows a particular ignorance of history.