Slashdot Mirror
Your Garbage Can Could Be Spying On You
macs4all writes "Garbage cans all over England are under surveillance tonight. And not by sleepy, fallible humans. This article in Live Science claims that at least 500,000 'wheelie bins' are now using RFID technology." Though that doesn't sound very dire, the article points out the ease with which your consumer spending habits could be tracked. "Although this is frankly a story that is difficult to take seriously, please note the following. You should remember that many of the articles you buy (and sooner or later throw away) are now also equipped with passive RFID tags that detail the item's brand name and product name. If it's possible to scan the tag on the trash can with an ID, it's possible to use similar equipment to quickly scan your can to uncover your purchasing habits."
That's fine, but it's not how it'd work in the UK. They'll come up with a trash tax which will probably add more than 100 GBP to our council tax which often exceeds 1000 GBP a year as it is. Meanwhile they only collect the rubbish every two weeks and refuse (no pun int...) to take it if you've overfilled the bin or not sorted the recycling how they want it. Of course, they don't actually recycle 90% of the stuff you'd expect... no newspapers, magazines, cardboard food packaging, plastic, etc...
Rip off Britain's a bleeding con and it's no wonder 0.5 million of us are emigrating each year.
"UK is a small crowded place, that's running out of landfill sites rapidly."
Only about 8% of British land is built on, and there are vast areas that could be used for landfills.
Instead, we end up with piles of 'recyclables' that no-one wants, and have to pay to ship them to the Third World so they'll dump them for us. Recycling in the UK is a huge scam, and this is just another way for councils to charge more for doing less.
Your garden is not built on. Would you like a landfill site there?
(a) Landfills have to be kept carefully away from other areas due to pollution and other concerns, so they have a much greater footprint than space they occupy themselves.
(b) Landfills have to be located reasonably near where the garbage is produced. They have to be geographically stable areas. And so on. Many of the places not built on are places that are not built on for a reason, and should not be landfill sites for the same reason.
(c) Just because land is not built on does not mean that nobody cares about what goes on it. If YOU aren't happy to have a landfill near your home or place of work, what right do you have to ask Farmer Bob, or Park Manager Sue, or whatever to have a landfill anywhere near them?