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."

Comments

also used in disputes

[legoburner]

One of the main 'justifications' that the local councils gave was that they were able to settle 'who owns which bin' disputes. When the bins are all at the kerb after pickup, assholes sometimes take their neighbours bin (bins all look the same since they are issued by the council), then they get into disputes and nobody can prove who owned what unless they had their house number painted on the front (also common). The council try to justify the RFID by saying it allows them to quickly see who the bin really belongs to. I dont really agree with this though but oh well, my bin is not tracked (not a council bin) and I am in the UK.

Re:also used in disputes

[Draveed]

Why would you care about getting back the same garbage can? As long as they're all the same size, who cares? All they do is hold your garbage so no matter which one you get, they're all dirty.

Re:also used in disputes

[witchgirl]

Oh, you care if you have to live with drastic recycling duties and get fined for putting the wrong item in the wrong bin/case (or your rubbish stays where it is...). Some cities in England have to face that, with very odd requirements at times. More info here: Daily Mail Article.

Re:also used in disputes

[legoburner]

I wouldn't underestimate how petty people who hate their neighbours can be. Not much use applying rational logic to their actions.

Re:also used in disputes

[artifex2004]

Why would you care about getting back the same garbage can? As long as they're all the same size, who cares? All they do is hold your garbage so no matter which one you get, they're all dirty.

Think: broken/missing lids, hinges, handles, wheels; the can having been run into/over by a car; or the can being stolen. (If your neighbor's can is stolen, and he takes yours, it's not like you can use his.)

Re:also used in disputes

[Potor]

not being british, i ask: is council (here) synonomous with social housing, or simply with municipal services? if the former, it sounds like the poor are gonna get screwed more by this than anyone else, according to your take. so, what's new?

Re:also used in disputes

[legoburner]

Yes that is probably the real reason. From random Internet polls, there was an almost insignificant level of support for this and I think that it will just increase fly tipping to an extreme level. Most people seem fed up with paying such high council tax already that paying for rubbish collection would be enough to get them protesting. I would hope that it doesnt actually become reality but you never know what they will try and push through next.

Re:also used in disputes

[legoburner]

The council is the local government (mayor, etc) and they take in a fixed amount of money (everyone pays the same, even rentals) as a housing tax. They pay for roads, garbage collection, schools, local police, etc. (along with Govt subsidies for the same). Council housing is housing that is either provided or subsidised for poor/disadvantaged people but there is a huge queue to get it. Single mothers seem to be the priority, as well as people who have been granted asylum. As such the level of disadvantage tends to result in no-go areas or high crime rates around council housing so the council housing estates are generally looked down upon (though this differs from area to area, some are actually quite nice and have good standards).

Re:also used in disputes

[jimicus]

Both.

Municipal services (such as domestic rubbish collection, street lights, road maintenance, planning permission) and social housing are all handled by departments within the council. Funding comes from a number of sources, but ultimately it's 90% tax in some form. (You do have to pay rent on council housing)

The purpose of the tags is probably not to investigate buying habits. More likely, it will be combined with weighing equipment on the lorries which take the rubbish away to find out who's throwing out how much. Ostensibly this is to ensure that everyone is using the various recycling schemes properly, though I wouldn't be surprised if it culminates with being charged by weight for the amount of waste produced.

Parents with young children (how exactly do you recycle a nappy/diaper?), those without transport (not all councils take all recyclable material; some won't even take glass) will probably be the most affected by this - and, as you say, most people who fall into both brackets are poorer and so will be screwed harder.

Re:also used in disputes

[smittyoneeach]

Have stencils somehow grown ineffective in merry England?

Re:also used in disputes

[pe1chl]

There are several cities here in the Netherlands that already have such a system in operation. Indeed, the cans are weighed and identified by number, and the total amount used to calculate the waste disposal bill.

It is not a bad thing, in principle. I would not know why a family with 3 babies that fills two cans a week would have to pay the same as an individual who does not even have a full can after 3 weeks. Differentiation of payment makes people more aware about what they do.

However, there are problems due to antisocial behaviour. What is frequently seen in those areas, is that people dump their waste in other people's cans when they have been put outside. Also, people take garbage from their home to their work place, and dump it there, especially when such a system is not yet implemented in the area where they work.
One would expect such problems to disappear over time (especially when the system is widely implemented).

Re:also used in disputes

[DrXym]

I don't see bin tracking being a big deal, however at the same time RFID is not going to solve all issues. As you say, people paint their house numbers on bins. The council could easily send everyone a sticker to afix to the top which did the same. A barcoded sticker could even serve to identify the bin, and to allow reading by the weigh machine.

An RFID on its own will be no good. There will instances where some extended family of scumbags swap their bin with the little old lady next door so she gets the bill for their rubbish. So some kind of external sticker is going to be necessary in any event.

Re:also used in disputes

[megalomaniacs4u]

how exactly do you recycle a nappy/diaper

Well before disposable ones became all the rage they were made of cloth and could be washed. As a baby in the seventies I suffered with Terry Towelling nappies, my kid brother ten years later got the disposable kind. Actually several of my old nappies are still hanging around my parent's place - my mum uses one as a cloth for cleaning the bathroom and my dad has a could in the garage.

Re:also used in disputes

[pe1chl]

Of course, as also explained in another posting about such a system operating in Belgium, the tariff structure includes a fixed fee additional to the per-kilogram tariff.

Re:also used in disputes

[rucs_hack]

agreed, I have a neighbor who is so obsessed by this that, rain or shine, she will put out the bins of everyone in our street, and put them away again *the very second* the binmen are done with them.

Unless she's taken offence at you for some imagined reason (usually something which has no foundation in reality), in which case she won't put them back for a while, a couple of weeks at least.

It's sad really.

Re:also used in disputes

[cortana]

Stencils don't allow our local governments to send a £700k computer systems contract to a councillor's brother in law.

Re:also used in disputes

[Blue Stone]

> One would expect such problems to disappear over time (especially when the system is widely implemented).

One might, but in the UK, councils began charging businesses for the depositing of commercial waste in land-fill sites, a few years ago.

The result has been an explosion in the cases of fly-tipping: innocent land-owners - those who own a piece of open land - and it can be anything from a building site to grassland to a carpark - have refuse tipped on their land, and then face a huge bill to clear up the rubbish. If the landowner fails to clear it up, the council can, and does, apply a court order forcing them to clear it up, at their own cost - and if they fail to do so, the council will clear it up themselves and send the land-owner the bill!

In some cases, fly-tipping will even occur on land that is supposedly secure - fenced off - and the fly-tippers will even cut through padlocks to open gates to land where they can offload their waste.

The reason for this is that it's very lucrative to the fly-tippers - who undercut the council's charges (and don't generally care about the exact nature of the rubbish - hazardous chemicals, medical waste, etc.) and very good business sense for the businesses who use fly-tippers.

Charging people for the disposal of waste discourages them from using the service and leads people to seek other cheaper or no-cost ways of ridding themselves of their rubbish.

If the scheme outlined in the news-story is implemented, domestic waste will join the massive problem that commercial waste fly-tipping is causing here in the UK. Neighbour's bins will be used, public areas, parks, skips, anything to get out of paying.

The solution? For commercial waste - slap a blanket charge on every business that is likely to use the service that they pay along with their rates/taxes, and can't get out of - it becomes pointless for them to avoid using the official land-fill. For residential waste - stick with the system we have now - a service charge via the grossly unfair and unjust council tax.

-Blue

Re:also used in disputes

[smittyoneeach]

One sensed a bottom line somewhere...

Re:also used in disputes

[b0s0z0ku]

Parents with young children

Cotton washable diapers.

those without transport

Councils in the UK expect you to deliver your recyclables to *them*? In most places in the US, another truck just comes around weekly and picks up recycling bins.

-b.

Re:also used in disputes

[Anonymous Coward]

"Parents with young children (how exactly do you recycle a nappy/diaper?)"

You *wash* them, like generations of people used to do, or you hire a diaper service.

People are *way* too attached to disposable... well, everything, to the point that people have forgotten or can't imagine any other way, even though only 1 or 2 generations ago, people wouldn't think of being so wasteful.

Huge piles of garbage from each urban household are a modern anomaly, and a really bad habit that is possible to reduce. In my family household, we are lucky to fill *one* bag of garbage every two weeks. The rest is green-bin organic waste (food, grass clippings, leaves, etc.) or recylables (glass, aluminum, steel cans, about half the plastic). If local municipalities want to reduce the amount of garbage that goes into landfills or other solutions, then they need to provide the services that allow people to exercise other options (such as diversion and pickup of organic waste and recyclables).

Re:also used in disputes

[pe1chl]

In a country where people behave like that on a really large scale, it is tough to keep a "western civilization" in place.
Probably the country will fall down to an antisocial state where everyone only does what he deems good for himself and does not care what the effect on overall society is.

Not that this would be too amazing, but that is already what its government does in world politics. Together with the USA. And the effects are clearly visible.

Re:also used in disputes

[b0s0z0ku]

Of course this leaves a few residents wondering where the heck to put all these different bins (we don't have honking great big driveways like you do in the US)

Plenty of Americans live in cities and town centers, too. Not all of us have doublewide garages, V-8 SUVs and 5000 sq ft plastic houses :D

-b.

Re:also used in disputes

[grassy_knoll]

The purpose of the tags is probably not to investigate buying habits. More likely, it will be combined with weighing equipment on the lorries which take the rubbish away to find out who's throwing out how much. Ostensibly this is to ensure that everyone is using the various recycling schemes properly, though I wouldn't be surprised if it culminates with being charged by weight for the amount of waste produced.

My local city government wanted to add RFID tags to our plastic trash bins, not to monitor the citizens but to monitor those who pick up the trash. Think of it like workflow management.

As the bins were picked up, the idea was an RFID reader would "tick off" each bin as picked up, eventually marking an entire route as completed.. if the trash collectors picked everything up.

Funny enough, the RFID tags kept comming off the bins. Something about damage in handling, warping of the plastic bins in extreams of weather... almost like some people didn't want the system to work.

Re:also used in disputes

[Anonymous Coward]

I know. Some of us have quintuple-wide garages, 12 cylinder SUVs, and 10000 sq ft houses made from endangered owls.

Re:also used in disputes

[jacksonj04]

What gets me is that these are council owned bins. Note council owned, meaning the council own them and can therefore fit RFID tags to them all they see fit.

Not only this, but if you check the literature involved in refuse collection services you will note that it says you are liable to be charged anyway if you throw more than a reasonable amount of rubbish.

I have no objection to the council checking how much rubbish I put through their service. I don't even object to them working out what type of rubbish it is (Plastic, glass, paper, kitchen waste etc). Once it gets to itemising my rubbish it's gone too far, but if all they're doing is looking at usage patterns it's fine by me. Much like I don't care if websites track what I use to visit, where I go etc.

Re:also used in disputes

[sgt_doom]

Wow! If only we had such safeguards on those in power (you know, the PIPS!). But then, those in power are responsible for all this bullshit!

Re:also used in disputes

[amcdiarmid]

The cans may not be the same: On My Block of Washington, DC - the government (Which spends $$ spraying for moskuitoes and theoritically fining people for having breeding-cups in their yards) hands out trash cans without drainage holes. This means when is rains a few inches the night that a full trash can goes out - the cans don't get emptied because the G-Men can't lift the cans.

My "Identical" Cans have drainage holes drilled in the bottom. Yes I would like to get them back. Further - I drilled holes in the bottom of the neighbors cans in each side: I would like them to get them back.

However, NFW the goverment is going to use RFID to figure out whose cans are whose, as the cost of sending out someone to check costs more than the can.

Re:also used in disputes

[aamcf]

No, we're just being British.

Re:also used in disputes

[Dravik]

You can also remove the government monopoly on trash disposal. Charge a per kilo cost to dispose of rubbish at the land fill and let private enterprise do the rest. People who are real cheap will deliver the trash to the ladfill themselves. Others will start businesses and provide the service for much less than the city currently does.

Re:also used in disputes

[cunina]

Actually, the United States provides an enormous amount of public goods to the rest of the world. Much of it goes unrecognized these days for obvious and not-so-obvious reasons.

Re:also used in disputes

[Bing Tsher E]

Ah, yes. 'Recycling' becomes the camel's nose and into the tent come meddlers.

Really, the environmentalist interests should be bending over backwards to avoid their movement from being subverted by busybodies with a different agenda.

Re:also used in disputes

[x-guru]

I agree. This is a $1M replacement for a $2 permanent marker.

On a different note, would someone please explain to me, sans conspiracy theories, why I care if the Goverment knows what I buy or where I shop?
If they asked me, I would gladly provide them a list of retail stores where I buy my underwear. What the Hell is the difference?

Re:also used in disputes

[Bing Tsher E]

Some of us even live far from 'town center' and still defy stereotypes.

We have just under four acres here on an old rural highway. My car is a 1993 that gets 33 mpg with 187K miles on it. Very, very little of our house is 'plastic' since plastic hadn't been invented when it was built (all the oldest wiring, for instance, has cloth/rubber insulation).

Actually, we have two driveways, since I park on the one that leads to the small pasture out back.

The idea of living in some 'town center' just makes me wince. High density housing is for somebody else, to be certain.

Re:also used in disputes

[khallow]

People are *way* too attached to disposable... well, everything, to the point that people have forgotten or can't imagine any other way, even though only 1 or 2 generations ago, people wouldn't think of being so wasteful.

Better to waste cheap resources than to waste expensive resources like time. It's a tradeoff. Diapers are a classic example. Frankly, I think disposable diapers are worth it just in the time and effort it saves. We haven't even touched on the environmental footprint of laundering washable diapers, but it's not a straightforward example of "waste".

Huge piles of garbage from each urban household are a modern anomaly, and a really bad habit that is possible to reduce.

Garbage has been around as long as human civilization has been around. Most old cities are built on the garbage from earlier cities. They would have built up as much garbage as modern cities do, if they had the same efficient collection and disposal capabilities.

Re:also used in disputes

[brumby]

Why would you care about getting back the same garbage can? As long as they're all the same size, who cares? All they do is hold your garbage so no matter which one you get, they're all dirty.

Where I live, the council issues the bins so they will fit the robot(*) arm on the truck, and as soon as someone damages their bin, they immediately swipe their neighbours. This leads to a game of musical bins that lasts for weeks, until someome finally gives up and buys another one. It's usually me, I work long hours, so my bin gets swiped by someone who gets home before I do, and by then everyone elses bin is put away.

(*) I can't see what's 'robotic' about it, but the council likes to sound high-tech.

Re:also used in disputes

[Tim C]

As someone else already said, it depends on the council. Mine provides orange plastic bin bags for recyclable waste, and will collect paper, card, most plastics, cans, etc. They won't take glass, but there are large metal "bins" (roughly 6 feet cubed) a short walk away for glass. (Luckily for me, they're on the way to the station - I literally pass them twice a day every week day)

Re:also used in disputes

[pommiekiwifruit]

That is what flytippers do. Well, they take the money. Except that they don't deliver it to the landfill; they dump it over the local cricket pitch, or nature reserve.

Re:also used in disputes

[joshsnow]

Why would you care about getting back the same garbage can?
Because in the UK, some of the local councils are now collecting bins every second week instead of every week, so during hot weather, when flies lay their eggs in the rubbish, two weeks is long enough for maggots to breed in the bin. Some people clean their bins or pay a third party to clean and dis-infect the bin following rubbish collection. To then get a dirty bin which is never cleaned can cause a dispute.

Re:also used in disputes

[joshsnow]

It is not a bad thing, in principle.

In principle, yes, it is no bad thing, however in the UK, in practice, measures such as these are often used as a means of raising extra revenue. The local council taxes will not decrease when rubbish collection is paid for directly, rather money will be "freed up" to spend elsewhere.

Breaking RFID tags

[wilper]

So now we have to microwave our garbage aswell?

Re:Breaking RFID tags

[lordkuri]

Oh, I see you've tried my ex-wife's cooking. Man she gets around!

Re:Breaking RFID tags

[Descalzo]

You've never had a Hot Pocket?

alarmist bullshit

[Anonymous Coward]

This isn't some big brother scare. the councils are seeing if most of their trash is coming from a few households. Some people in the UK recycle, some don't, and to be honest its about time we took the whole issue of throwing so much stuff away seriously. the UK is a small crowded place, that's running out of landfill sites rapidly.
I recycle whatever I can, and I'm quite happy for the local council to look into charging a tax for people who can't be bothered to do so.

Re:alarmist bullshit

[jimicus]

Until they start charging everyone according to how much their rubbish weighs, with no corresponding drop in council tax.

Re:alarmist bullshit

[0123456]

"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.

Re:alarmist bullshit

[FhnuZoag]

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?

Re:alarmist bullshit

[SpooForBrains]

Perhaps if there was a sensible recycling scheme in place, but, surprise surprise, there really isn't. As a family of 5.99 we produce more than the average amount of rubbish, neither I nor my wife drive, so there is no sensible method of getting our recycling to a recycling centre. We had a limited paper collection system, but our recycling bag was pinched one week and despite numerous requests to the council to have it replaced, we're still without one.

Still, I don't need to worry. The council hasn't deigned to supply us with a wheely bin either. We have to just dump our rubbish in our front garden until collection day, when some guy comes and chucks it all into the street. Then, some hours later, the collection vans come round and pick most of it up.

With a lot of the UK suffering under a similar setup, wasting money on RFID schemes is like Thames Water putting on a hosepipe ban when their pipes leak thousands (or is it millions?) of gallons of water.

Re:alarmist bullshit

[KZigurs]

btw - did you knew that recycling is bullshit? Really.

One: You nicely recycle your "paper". Singe newspaper or cereal box in that transparent bag will void it. Whole bag is automatically forwared to usual landfill - no recycling. I still haven't figured what do they expect to see there.

Two: cost of recycling. If overall cost and pollution to produce soft-drinks can is set at 100%, same can from recycled materials will cost 125% (or thereabouts, forgot the exact details). Same for glass. Really. Take a look at how "recycling" works.

Re:alarmist bullshit

[blowdart]

My problem with recycling is being charged twice for it. Currently where I am, South Oxfordshire we don't have provided bins. So every Wednesday everyone dumps binliners out. It's bad when they get ripped, as the garbage men won't clean it up.

There's also an optional recycling box. Which you have to go collect from the local town hall, they don't just hand them out. However the box has no lid. So you have to wash out your tins before disposing of them, otherwise the box sits and festers. As it accepts all the recycling on windy collection days if you haven't put some thought into it your newspapers will blow down the street. Of course it's anyones guess why they just don't give everyone a damned box.

Then there's garden waste. Where you have to pay an annual fee for a wheely bin, as described in the original article. It's picked up every two weeks and the contents are then sold to a "local" (read owned by a relative) firm that turns the waste into manure. So the council gets paid twice for my grass clippings. You should also note that the Saturday "drive and dump" no longer takes green waste. So on principle most people don't do it, because they'll be damned if they're going to be ripped off. And so lots of the local forests have fly tippings of garden waste, or people simply double wrap it so it looks like normal domestic rubbish and it's picked up and taken to landfill.

Re:alarmist bullshit

[leenoble_uk]

The argument that you don't drive so you can't recycle doesn't hold water on its own. I can't berate you personally because I don't know your particular circumstances. If you have to do all your shopping in a local corner shop/convenience store then fair enough they don't have recycling facilities so you can only rely on what the local authority provides. However there are hundreds of thousands or millions of people who do their shopping in supermarkets (most of which have bottle banks and such) who don't take their recyclables back - regardless of whether they drive there or not. Empty packaging weighs a hell of a lot less than the full bags of shopping you bring back from the supermarket so even if you're making your regular shop by bus or walking there is no excuse not to take along your bottles (glass and plastic), tins and cardboard in the plastic carrier bags you got from the supermarket last time you went, emptying them and reusing the bags to bring home your new shopping. Hell why not leave some of the outer packaging at the supermarket before you leave. And yes, I do this. I haven't taken a new carrier bag from a supermarket for months, it's not hard and I no longer have drawers stuffed with the things.

Re:alarmist bullshit

[wilsong]

And, of course, sooo much easier for our chickenshit government to put the "environmental" onus onto individuals rather than the corporations doing the real damage. People don't just suddenly decide to produce a mountain of crap, they get helped to that point - and people on council estates getting taxed and fined are so much less likely to mount a costly fightback than overpackaging Cadburys, town-ripping Asda (the UK incarnation of Wal-mart), etc, etc. The idea that every individual's small contribution to improving things will add up and make a difference is great and broadly sensible. But we're seeing it twisted into something where individual blame is all there is, and that allows politics and business to abdicate responsibility for the damage they do. If Blair suddenly proposed a penalty for supermarkets selling non-recycleable packages, we might see change. Until then, just expect to get screwed, while the nation gets filthier.

Re:alarmist bullshit

[tomhudson]

Geez ... there's a much simpler solution.

Just put your garbage in a box, wrapped up to look like a present, and leave it in your car with the window open.

Or, recently bought yourself a new air conditioner, computer or dvd player or other home electronics? Fill the box up with garbage, seal it up, and park at your local shopping mall.

Re:alarmist bullshit

[Millenniumman]

Hehe, that is an amusing idea, especially if you use manure instead of trash.

Re:alarmist bullshit

[OriginalArlen]

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.

Source?

Re:alarmist bullshit

[Inda]

I tried to find you an online source but failed.

This story, and other stories mentioning recyled waste being shipped abroad, has been in all the major UK newspapers this week. The parent poster is telling no lies.

Re:alarmist bullshit

[tomhudson]

Don't laugh ... here's another true story.

One day the sewer pipe broke and the basement filled up with you-know-what. Pretty gross. When we had bought the place, we left the original carpet, and put a new one over it. They were both ruined, so I rolled them up (sopping wet) and dragged them through the garage and to the curb. It was well below freezing, so they quickly turned solid.

Of course, now that they're solid, they don't smell like raw sewage ...

Rush hour comes, and I see a station wagon stop ... the driver gets out, sees an almost-brand-new carpet, and PUTS IT IN THE BACK OF HIS STATION WAGON.

I would have loved to have a video of him driving along, with the heater going full blast, when it starts to thaw out ...

Or maybe he didn't have so far to drive, and brought it indoors to thaw out, or parked in the garage and had supper first ...

Re:alarmist bullshit

[OfNoAccount]

Actually it's not alarmist bullshit at all IMO. In my area we have the RFID tagged wheelie bins (the labels say chip id=...), and the council will only pick up the contents of those RFID bins, anything else they won't touch with a 60ft pole. So it's not like a few households can throw a huge amount away, even if they wanted to - since the council would then refuse to collect it.

If this is an attempt to reduce waste the government is going about things the wrong way. The best solution would be to reduce packaging at source - and for most people that's the supermarkets. Want to buy some peaches? Well locally they're only available in a pack of four, with a polystyrene base (non-recycleable in this area), clear plastic lid (also non-recyclable) and then shrink wrapped (also not recycleable). Is it any small wonder we have mountains of rubbish? A simple brown paper bag would do the job just fine... Can I get them to provide my fruit in a brown paper bag? No. I probably could if I went to the market (i.e. the outside place with stalls and independent sellers), but that's closed when I'm not at work.

Re:alarmist bullshit

[chakmol]

I tried to find you an online source but failed.

This story, and other stories mentioning recyled waste being shipped abroad, has been in all the major UK newspapers this week. The parent poster is telling no lies.
 

These links talk about that. They mostly talk about waste coming from the US, but I imagine what's piling up in the 3rd world is coming from everywhere.

http://multinationalmonitor.org/hyper/issues/1992/ 06/mm0692_10.html Plastics: Trashing the Third World
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2002/02/25/compu ter-waste.htm Much toxic computer waste lands in Third World

Re:alarmist bullshit

[pitu]

I actually got in a fight with my girlfriend about recycling. She, like you, seems to think that it is the civilized thing to do.

  I on the contrary think that:

    - the large industries should lead the recyling game. Local home recycling is just scratching the problem.
    - recycling glass, is not really recycling. glass is made from rocks. glass = rocks. I am not going to make some
        recycling company profit on an " I am saving the planet " modern days hype. I may recycle glass if they pay me for it.
    - I am throwing away just all things I don't need. Tons of that carton ambalage that comes with my products is really
        unnecessary. I'd prefer if they actualy taxed the producers for creating junk containers rather than fining me, the poor consumer.

        So yes, I won't be bothered to recycle, please don't tax me for my garbage or you'll see it in public parks. ...but i do think that they are just planning to weight garbage for now. But I dont see what is to stop them from 'reading' consumers habits and selling them in the future. Your ad supported, green recycled, loyal citizens, garbage can is on the way...

Re:alarmist bullshit

[Bing Tsher E]

Well, I personally think a thorough audit of the whole 'recycling' operation needs to be conducted. Just where are all the recycled materials going? Is there any point in recycling each and every material? And why is recycling encouraged instead of reusable, returnable for deposit containers?

As always in any government-mandated operation, parasites grow at the points where they can grab ahold. And there are well-documented cases of 'just-because' recycling operations where none of the material is really being properly recycled. Recycling operations are set up 'just because we can' and a whole new batch of taxpayer-funded 'workers' make their way on the payroll.

Re:alarmist bullshit

[leenoble_uk]

First of all, I have no idea about the OP's condition which is why I couldn't comment on his particular circumstances.

Secondly, my point in short was that "not being able to drive is NOT an excuse not to recycle". That is ON ITS OWN, IT IS NOT AN EXCUSE. I said nothing about being infirm or unable. There are plenty of people that DO drive and still don't recycle, driving in itself IS NOT RELEVANT to whether or not you recycle.

The point remains that IF you regularly do your shopping at a supermarket where there are recycling facilities then no matter how you get there, if you can mange to carry your shopping then you should be able to manage a few empty bottles and some cardboard.

As for "offloading anything you don't want to take responsibility for" at the supermarket's garbage can. I was referring more to excess cardboard outer packaging which in many case could be dropped in the paper/cardboard recycling bin at the supermarket BEFORE YOU LEAVE to save you carrying it home and then back to the supermarket next time you shop.

And speaking of taking responsibility - if you hadn't chickened out and posted as AC then perhaps you'd be reading this reply to your insane dribble. Now fuck off.

Re:alarmist bullshit

[The Benefactor]

We also have problems with the crazy methods of recycling used in local councils. We have one wheelie bin for non-recyclables and 2 red bags for plastic + card and 2 clear bags for garden waste and a tiny box for paper, glass and cans. The main problem is that the box is too small and the bags "disappear" after being collected, often i come home from work to find the street covered in these bags as they get left in front gardens and get blown away, or just not returned in the first place. The best implementation of council collected recycling I've seen is a 2 wheelie bin system, 1 for non-recyclables and the other for all recyclables, presumably this is sorted at the tip rather than just shipped off to third world landfills but thats another debate.

Tinfoil hat!

[BriSTO(V)L]

C'mon guys, the answer is obvious - line your bin with tinfoil. Instant faraday trash cage, no more local government spying on where you get your take-out pizzas from etc etc

Re:Tinfoil hat!

[niceone]

C'mon guys, the answer is obvious - line your bin with tinfoil. Instant faraday trash cage, no more local government spying on where you get your take-out pizzas from etc etc

Won't work - they tip the garbage into the garbage truck and scan it there.

if you're going to make tinfoil comments, you really need to work on your paranoia a bit.

Re:Tinfoil hat!

[should_be_linear]

I have nothing to hide. I am releasing all my garbage under BSD license.

without rfid tags...

[Facegarden]

Without RFID tags on the bins, someone could still walk by with a scanner and scan your trash to see what you've been buying... The only difference is that having a tag on the bin makes keeping track of who's trash it is marginally easier, but it's not impossible without them... I'm afraid that we're going to see many articles like this in the future, as people slowly discover RFID tags in things that didn't used to have them... RFID readers on garbage trucks... they can see what I'm buying! Wait... they could already see what i have been buying with my credit card... Unless i purposefully try to obfuscate my purchases of certain items with cash, chances are my arbitrary use of cash versus credit gives everyone who has access to that data a good picture of what i buy... Yes, there are new scenarios rfid tags create, but it's all the same idea. The point is things are changing... Marketing has been getting more invasive ever since it started, but we live out lives just fine today. Tomorrow, if i get a target ad on goldfish crackers because someone finds out i ate some goldfish crackers via the wheelie bin, it's not going to change my life... And yes, it could be used by bad people, but my point again is everything is like that... So lets relax a bit... -Taylor

Re:without rfid tags...

[Anonymous Coward]

Besides, the RFID tags do not detail an item's brandname or anything like that.
It just returns a number to the scanner, that, similar to how barcodes work, gets matched in the internal database of the place you bought it.
Those databases are not secret, but the ID codes will be ambiguous.

Re:without rfid tags...

[TubeSteak]

RFID readers on garbage trucks... they can see what I'm buying! Wait... they could already see what i have been buying with my credit card...

Who is "they"?
Why do "they" have to have access to your credit card?

Maybe "they" are a bunch of thieves driving around with an amped up & tweaked out RFID reader and "they" are looking for tags with a high dollar value attached to them. Actually, a garbage truck would make a good base of operations.

My point really has nothing to do with RFIDed garbage bins, only that pervasive RFID tagging is going to be a problem without judicious use of the kill switch.

Re:without rfid tags...

[symbolic]

I'm afraid that we're going to see many articles like this in the future, as people slowly discover RFID tags in things that didn't used to have them

Yes, and wasn't it not too long ago that companies like Wal-mart swore up and down that RFID was going to used *only* to track inventory? People shrugged, figured that it wouldn't be *too* bad if its use was limited to that. Now we're faced with the next logical outcome- something that was visible a mile away.

I'm sure governments and marketers can think of all manner of excuses to use this stuff. As for identifying a trash bin? Geez...ever hear of buying a cheap engraving tool and engraving some type of ID onto it in an inconspicuous place? I'd like to see an inexpensive consumer device that will identify the presence of RFID tags, and completely disable them.

Re:without rfid tags...

[Facegarden]

Yeah, but personally, that doesn't matter, because like i said, i don't care if RFID tags are in my garbage cans. Yeah, they could engrave addresses in plates, but why? If there's no RFID tags on the bin a thief will just hook gps up to his rdif enable laptop as he drives by...And yeah, we're up for the next logical outcome. RFID tags everywhere! And that still doesn't bother me, because i just don't care. These "new tools" for thieves are also the next logical outcome in the long line of theives tools, yet the world isn't any more overrun by thievery than it was 1000 years ago when thieves had a knife and a fake horse-hair moustache. Yes, thieves have more tools, and i still don't care, because i'm not going to spend my time getting all reactionary about everything new that happens in the world. -Taylor

Re:without rfid tags...

[Facegarden]

well, "they" are the same "they" they've always been. People who worry about this stuff don't seem to care specifically who "they" are... the problem most people seem to have is just that the data is there, and avaliable to "someone", and that is enough of a problem. Yeah, the credit card companies might have a clause that says they won't share my purchasing habits, but if they have the database, there's always hackers. And i don't even know for sure if they do have that kind of a clause... And yeah, maybe "they" are thieves, but i didn't even mention that because the article didn't specify. In my example with credit cards, i was thinking more about direct marketers, which are almost as bad as thieves in some people's eyes, and often the most logical implied subject of this kind of "oh noes!" article. But yes, there are thieves. Like i said in my other article though, thieves are always getting new tools, but so is everyone else. We're no more overrun by thievery than we were 1000 years ago, yet the tools thieves have are amazing compared to before. People forget that in the end these things don't actually make a difference in society. Things come up, but we adapt and it's all ok (i promise). This is the same tinfoil-hat wearing reactionary talk some of us have grown very tired of... -Taylor

Re:without rfid tags...

[symbolic]

I'm not as worried about the thieves as I am about the government.

Won't work on me.

[onion2k]

This wouldn't work for me. I try to maintain a healthy lifestyle. That means buying lots of fresh fruit, vegetables, meat, etc. If there's any RFID tags in the things I buy then the chances are pretty high that I'll have eaten it.

Remember folks, microwave your unmentionables...

[Antony-Kyre]

Remember folks, microwave your unmentionables before throwing them out in the trash. While you're at it, buy a new microwave and save the old one for this type of purpose. I figure 30 seconds in the microwave will make sure the RFID chip cannot be read.

Class help for burglars

[Anonymous Coward]

You have just managed to disguise the cardboard boxes as they stand outside for cardboard recycling, and now comes along another tool for burglars to see if your place is really worth raiding (note to burglars: it isn't, and my pitbull is underfed).

Why the hell don't these idiots think this through before they do this? Then again, you could say that for the whole War on Terror thing - it's certainly made the world a hell of a lot less safe..

non story

[tonigonenstein]

"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."

Certainly, but if your garbage has RFID tags you can scan it, wether or not the can has a tag. Or if you prefer:

$(A \Rightarrow B) \nRightarrow (\neg A \Rightarrow \neg B)$

Now my garbage can?!

[walnutmon]

This is a direct violation of my inalienable right as an inhabitant of this earth to have a right to life, and a right to privacy. I have never been so pissed off in my life. I can't even control my anger right now. Why can't these governments just let us live our lives the way that WE SEE FIT, without trying to monitor EVERYTHING WE DO! This is the last straw, I will RISE UP and fight this AT ALL COSTS. They will never take my FREEDOM.

Oscar

Re:Now my garbage can?!

[EnglishTim]

I think that may be a slight overreaction. Would you react the same way if they just write your name on your wheelie bin? I don't really see the difference.

Re:Now my garbage can?!

[jimmichie]

Look, Apple couldn't have released GarbageCan without some form of DRM - the big Garbage companies would never have allowed it.

Oh wait.

Re:Now my garbage can?!

[markdavis]

>Would you react the same way if they just write your name on your wheelie bin? I don't really see the difference.

Oh, I see a BIG difference. If they have a scanner on the trucks that can read RFID, they can read not only the tag on the bin, but also all the tags on the trash IN the bin. And it can happen VERY quickly. Furthermore, the huge majority of people won't know they were doing it, or what dangers that implies.

Re:Now my garbage can?!

[lixee]

Pissed off people of all countries, unite!

Re:Now my garbage can?!

[timmyf2371]

They will never take my FREEDOM.

Yes they will. And they'll take mine too. And while we might be able to delay it, we won't ultimately be able to stop it.

Re:Now my garbage can?!

[dorkygeek]

Well, they can already scan your garbage for tags now, this doesn't require a tag on the bin itself!. Sorry, but how stupid are you?

Besides, all they would get from the garbage scanning is a bunch of serial numbers which means nothing to them. They can only be used to identify products in conjunction with the product database of the entity which applied the tags. And in order to find out which product database you have to consult, you had to actually look at the piece containing the tag, which renders the scanning redundant, because then you already know what product it is.

Re:Now my garbage can?!

[sgt_doom]

A thousand thanks for seeing the actual point!

Those in power - when no one should truly be in power anymore, seek ever greater control, power and domination. In a civilized world, we would all be partners. Those who advocate adapt or die, compete or die, conquer or be conquered, are the enemy. They feel they are superior (I mean really, last week in America there was a "political" show where the topic was: "Is George W. Bush really an idiot?").

I mean, after 6 years in office as the Pissant of the USA, if anyone has to ask such an inane question, they really should be disappeared, right????

Re:Now my garbage can?!

[sgt_doom]

You, good citizen, are absolutely right! We get the government we deserve, and as I told a bunch of women complaining about shrinking women's rights in the USA, "You deserve to lose your rights as long as women voted for George W. Bush!" And as I told a bunch of union workers the other day, "Unions deserve to get screwed, as long as union members voted for George W. Bush!" And as I told a bunch of military officers waiting to cross the street this morning, "The military deserves to have their benefits cut back, as long as they voted for George W. Bush!"

The primo reading list for the 21st century: Hostile Takeover by David Sirota, Armed Madhouse by Greg Palast, Jacked and also Other People's Money by Nomi Prins, Confessions of an Economic Hitman by John Perkins, No Place To Hide by Robert O'Harrow, What Every American Should Know About Who's Really Running the World by Melissa L. Rossi, American Theocracy by Kevin Phillips, Judas Economy by Wolman and Colamosca, and War is a Racket by General Smedley Butler.

Re:Now my garbage can?!

[markdavis]

>Well, they can already scan your garbage for tags now, this doesn't require a tag on the bin itself!.
>Sorry, but how stupid are you?

Why must people like you resort to name calling? You do realize it makes you sound so juvenile.

"They" would need some type of ID on the trash can to use to associate the bin with a person/residence. Some RFID tags do have product information and do not require a transaction database in order to determine what it is. Then the two pieces of data- owner and product, could be associated.

Re:Now my garbage can?!

[timmyf2371]

I'm not saying that I like it, just saying it's inevitable.

Look at the majority of the population; "think of the children", "terrorists", "gas prices" etc will all help to smooth the transition. Those of us that do care about freedom and rights will resist as long as we can, but we aren't going to be able to change much overall.

Only a cataclysmic event, such as a World War or a civil war might help to change attitudes and help somewhat.

Re:Now my garbage can?!

[dorkygeek]

Why must people like you resort to name calling? You do realize it makes you sound so juvenile.

Because the stupidity of some people really bugs me, so I have to tell them.

"They" would need some type of ID on the trash can to use to associate the bin with a person/residence.

You can do that without any tags as well: just look at the house in front of which the bin is placed. Note also that a tag does not give you much more information. A neighbour could as well have dropped his garbage in your bin and vice versa. Futhermore, a house with more than one party residing in it often shares bins. How does slapping a tag on the bin help in this case?

All I want to say is that this is pure paranoia, and does not reveal any further information than you could gather from an untagged bin.

Re:Now my garbage can?!

[markdavis]

>Because the stupidity of some people really bugs me, so I have to tell them.

You would do better to hold your "tounge". Just because you don't understand something someone is saying, or you disagree with them, doesn't make them "stupid"... it just makes you arrogant when you call them "stupid".

>You can do that without any tags as well: just look at the house in front of which the bin is placed

If there is an automated system for gathering such information, it is highly unlikely that a machine can do that with any success, speed, or accuracy.

>A neighbour could as well have dropped his garbage in your bin and vice versa. [...]

Nobody said this was infallible. There are lots of ways that errors can creep into such a system, which is all the more scary.

>All I want to say is that this is pure paranoia

One of my favourite quotes I have seen somewhere: "It is only paranoia if they aren't watching you".

Trash Tracking

[JonnyCalcutta]

This is just stupid. Any interference with peoples rubbish, especially if it leads to a 'rubbish tax' - say on putting recyclable items in a non-recycling bin or throwing away too much rubbish (there are whispers about these happening) - will just lead to more people dumping their rubbish illegaly. People already feel they pay way too much in Council Tax (local tax based on property value which amounts to over $3000 per annum and which funds the local councils - ie rubbish collection, local roads, schools, etc).

People will simply fill the bins up to the non-chargeable limit and then throw the rest out at street corners on their way to work. I can see a good market developing for pedal bins that weigh your rubbish and tell you when you reach the limit. Or a new practical joke of putting bricks on your neighbours bin.

We have this where I live

[Saib0t]

In Belgium, at least in the city of Chaudfontaine (link in french), we've been having RFIDs on our trashbins for several years already (4? 5?).

While the paranoïac among you see this as a potential invasion of privacy, I see this as an easy way for the city to have me pay taxes only on what I put in the bin.

The process is simple. The trucks come over, put the container on a scale, scan the RFID automagically, empty the bin, voila. If it's empty, I don't pay.
The net result for me is that I get to pay:
32 € per year
+11 € for the container rent per year.
+1.60 € for each time my bin is not empty
+0.16 € /kg

Which is way less than I used to pay before.

Plus, I get to dispose of my glass stuff in containers accessible all around the city for free.
I get to dispose of my plastic and metallic (soda cans, tins, etc.) in special bags for free.
I get to dispose of 3 cubic meters (106 cubic feet) of other stuff (grass, leaves, dirt, sofa, planks, etc.) for free

The RFID on my trashbins are thus an easy way for the city to make those who dispose of more stuff pay more, which is as it should be.
I have yet to see the trash guys peek inside my stuff...

Cool system IMO...

Re:We have this where I live

[Anonymous Coward]

> If it's empty, I don't pay.

This wouldn't work in the UK. If the councils start charging people more for throwing away too much garbage then people will start dumping their stuff in their neighbours bins to avoid getting charged. We already have enough problems with fly tipping of commercial and hazardous waste as it is, without adding residential waste to the mix.

-Vern

Re:We have this where I live

[cs02rm0]

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.

Re:We have this where I live

[Rogerborg]

Well, Belgium is a dull, law abiding sort of place. Here in Blighty, the patriotic thing to do would be to dump your trash in your neighbour's bin and make them pay for it.

Re:We have this where I live

[gibbsjoh]

I agree with the first bit of your post (and indeed it is Rip Off Britian), but at least in this area (M4 corridor/NW Surrey) it's collection every week in most places, with newspaper/junkmail, magazines, plastic, tins and bottles. There's a rumour that rubbish collection will drop to once every 2 weeks mind you, and the council tax is ass-rapingly high as it is. I guess it just depends on your local borough council.

Incidentally I called up the recycling people at my council (Runnymede) recommending a few ways in which they could improve service. These included clearer labelling on plastic recycling dumpsters (ie, listing the plastic "codes" that can be recycled instead of just "bottles") and making sure all sites have all the relevant areas for different products (local tip takes cardboard but no plastic, local supermarkets take plastic and shopping bags but no cardboard). I was basically told that the local people are too stupid to read any complicated signage so they weren't going to bother. Typical!

JG

Re:We have this where I live

[Gnavpot]

While the paranoÃac among you see this as a potential invasion of privacy, I see this as an easy way for the city to have me pay taxes only on what I put in the bin.

Whoosh.

This story is not about the dangers of the bin itself being scanned. It is about the dangers of the contents of the bin being scanned.

Re:We have this where I live

[Gnavpot]

Whoosh.

This story is not about the dangers of the bin itself being scanned. It is about the dangers of the contents of the bin being scanned.

Or to be more clear:
The article is about scanning bins. The question raised in the resume is about scanning contents of bins.

Re:We have this where I live

[petes_PoV]

excellent rebuttal.

Metering a houshold's rubbish is no different from metering it's water or power consumption (except that it's going the other direction).

If it makes people more aware of the amount of stuff they waste then it can only be a good thing.

If you're worried about having your garbage monitored, then too bad ...

it's already been recorded when you bought it with a credit/debit card.

Of course the totally paranoid will just toss their junk in someone else's bin

Re:We have this where I live

[sgt_doom]

Le dude, I happen to live in America, where the government has contracts with ALL the major commercial databases and therefore now enjoys almost complete and total access to all information on the majority of Americans (exception: those who still live in caves). We have reason here to be paranoid....

Re:We have this where I live

[Curmudgeonlyoldbloke]

> Rip off Britain's a bleeding con and it's no wonder 0.5 million of us are emigrating each year.

So that's why the population's historically low right now then?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/5281360.stm

(or maybe not)

Re:We have this where I live

[cs02rm0]

>> Rip off Britain's a bleeding con and it's no wonder 0.5 million of us are emigrating each year.

>So that's why the population's historically low right now then? >http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/5281360.stm

>(or maybe not)

We have a rising population because in spite of record emigration levels, we have record immigration levels which are significantly higher.

Re:We have this where I live

[cs02rm0]

So for now you get it once a week and it could drop to every two weeks... yet I've just got back from a few weeks in Cyprus where the rubbish is collected daily - and somehow they manage it without paying 7-14 times as much council tax. Naturally... they don't pay anywhere near as much as we do for that service.

Re:We have this where I live

[Saib0t]

Le dude, I happen to live in America, where the government has contracts with ALL the major commercial databases and therefore now enjoys almost complete and total access to all information on the majority of Americans (exception: those who still live in caves). We have reason here to be paranoid....

In terms of paranoïa, I failed to mention that we have:
- mandatory electronic ID cards with a chip containing birthdate, birthplace, sex, address, marital status, national number, name of spouse, etc.
- centralized medical information. My medical history is available to any physician I authorize or emergency services. This is a service I actually signed up for, not mandatory.

On the other hand, we have 5 major parties (green, socialist, christian, liberal, extreme-right) and several dozens of smaller parties. None of which continuously have more than 25% of the votes, meaning they have to ally with another party EVERYTIME. It is worthwile to note that the most liberal parties in belgium would be considered extreme socialist in the US.

You have a right to be worried and paranoiac in the US. Then again, no disrespect but my personal opinion is that the government of the US is a fine representative of the majority of the people living in the US, including the apatic ones. (Not that I like the idea, but hey, there's not much I can do about it...)

Re:We have this where I live

[sgt_doom]

Then again, no disrespect but my personal opinion is that the government of the US is a fine representative of the majority of the people living in the US, including the apatic ones.

Sad to say, I must agree with you....

Re:We have this where I live

[julesh]

Yeah, well, the reason the British are objecting to it is that, as the Daily Mail said when they broke the story a few days ago, the GERMANS ARE BUGGING OUR BINS!

Well, they didn't put it *exactly* like that, but you could tell thats what they were trying to get across... ;)

Re:We have this where I live

[Julian Morrison]

There is going to come a point when a private (in both senses of the word) bin collecting service is going to be commercially viable. People will say "it's like BUPA, I'm paying for it twice, but this way I'll at least be treated like a paying customer".

Ten years down the line, everyone will be paying a "bin bill", which won't be awfully much, and they'll collect weekly or on demand for an extra fee, and they'll not bug you about recycling (which is, in nearly every case except aluminium, an anti-green net waste of energy).

The lefties will of course hate this, and decry it as a two-tier system.

Re:We have this where I live

[Curmudgeonlyoldbloke]

So the majority of people are voting with their feet in the opposite direction to the one that you said...

Personally, if people are paying income tax and VAT here I couldn't care less where they were born. I'm descended partially from economic migrants to the UK (19th century Irish), and if you've got a UK passport the chances are that (unless you're pure-bred Welsh or from the far West of Scotland) that you are too.

Paranoid Fluff.

[celardore]

The tags that are installed in your bin are there to identify a bin with a household and issue an instruction to the truck to weigh on lift. There's no worthwhile talk of it tracking discarded packets RFIDs and profiling you based on your garbage....

Re:Paranoid Fluff.

[markdavis]

You are a VERY trusting chap, aren't you? You can't possibly see how or why that same scanner could be used to quickly record every RFID in the bin. Isn't it "worthwhile" to be at least a little concerned about the possible abuses, as the number of items with RFID chips increases each year?

RFIDs in trash

[MollyB]

Everyone's talking about microwaves...How about a low-tech approach. like a sledgehammer? Works as a doorstop, too!

Misplaced hysteria

[technogogo]

I think it was that dreadful UK tabloid, The Mail on Sunday, which created this "your bin is bugged" hysteria last week. They stirred up lots of fear and doubt by using terms like "bug" to describe something that is just a serial number. I bet if the new bins had a bar code, nobody would care less. Instead the media is making out that this RFID chip can somehow directly spy on what you are throwing away.
In my town, local newspapers like the Daily Echo http://www.thisisbournemouth.co.uk/display.var.903 767.0.whats_bugging_you.php have jumped on the Mails fear-mongering bandwagon and are doing that all too common trick... publish over-the-top scare stories one day, then run a 2nd story with feedback from 'horrified readers' the next. A sure sign of media hype.

But what baffles me with this situation is the tabloid press in the UK say very little about the real privacy issues of the day.... the ID card scheme, this new national database of childrens details, DRM seeping into our products and purchases. But garbage containers that have a number - oh the horror! Jeez!

Ok just one more thing... I know RFID tags are not liked by slashdot. I'm no fan of them either. Making bins identifiable is a step towards a new form of non-recycled refuge taxation. I don't think thats a bad thing if it causes people to recycle more. But these new taxes tend to be on top of existing taxes. So its not like we'd get a local tax offset first. This angle is generating concern as represented by the public feedback. But the mdeia spin on the capabilities of the technology amaze me. Though it if makes the ID card scheme falter, its a good thing.

Re:Misplaced hysteria

[arkhan_jg]

I live near bournemouth (used to live there too, but shifted west a bit), and the thing that's annoyed people is the complete lack of information about the chips and the poor info about the new recycling scheme. Basically, they've been worried that the council is about to start spying on the amount of their rubbish disposal and charging an extra 'waste' tax based on how much they throw away. Given the the council tax is already supposed to pay for waste disposal, it's a bit cheeky to start charging extra, and people aren't happy to be secretly monitored by the council either.

Also, what about people throwing stuff in your bin? I live near a local market, and my non-wheelie bin constantly gets extra rubbish from people at the market. It's annoying bagging it up, it would be very very annoying if I was to be charged by weight for it to boot.

Personally, I wouldn't complain about the media too much - at least they're getting people involved in what their local council is up to, and if people get sufficiently up in arms over this, the council might be a bit more careful next time they decide to spend large sums of money secretly monitoring their residents.

These things are easy to spot and remove

[Rogerborg]

So take them off and pop them in the microwave, then replace them. Dire warnings aside, the workload on modern refuse collectors is so high that it's vanishingly unlikely that the system will be set up scan and refuse bins without an RFID before emptying them, and it's a fair bet that the beaurocracy won't be set up effectively to investigate who owns which anonymous bin. Do you see the chap on the bin lorry giving a damn? He just wants to get done as soon as possible.

Re:These things are easy to spot and remove

[zaax]

How about strong magnets?

Re:These things are easy to spot and remove

[markdavis]

I think you are missing the point. We all know the obvious reasons they are doing it- and they are good reasons: preventing violations of trash rules, perhaps using it to charge people less that produce less waste, preventing people from stealing other's trashcans.

The problem is what it COULD be used for, which has nothing to do with the chap emptying the can. Imagine what a covert agency could discover about you or your family by instantly knowing and tracking future RFID tags! Based on staticical probabilites: how many people live with you, your sexual orientation, your sexual patterns, if you drink alcohol, aspects of how you raise your children, if you smoke, what kinds of high-risk foods you consume, if anything you buy "looks" like you are a terrorist and puts you under further (more intense) observation, medical conditions you might have, if the profile of your consumptions looks like you are using some kind of illegal drug, etc.

Of course, it is much EASIER to do that on the front-end, when you are buying the stuff. Since most people use trackable payment methods. But this is just another possible way to capture such information, even if you regularly pay cash.

The majority of people will claim "If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to worry about". But that is not what privacy and freedom are about. Knowledge is power. The more a government spys on and knows about its citizens, the more freedom COULD be taken away from you. The higher the probability mistakes would be made. The more you are forced into a stereotype box that you can't control and without your awareness or consent. The more the "improper" laws could be enforced.

I will give you an example. Most people would agree that speed limits are necessary to ensure public safety (I do too). But most people would NOT agree that means the government can install a device in your car that monitors your driving and auto-issues you a ticket if you go 1 MPH over the limit, and remembers this data for the rest of your life. Soon, it would then creep into limits on how hard you can accelerate. Or perhaps assume you are a bad driver if you had to break really hard. You will find yourself having to defend yourself against all kinds of data being gathered. People 50 years ago would have laughed at that, thinking it was impossible. It is certainly possible today. And tomorrow, perhaps it will be possible to use facial recognition everywhere, covertly, and track and record your every movement.

Technology is wonderful- it enables tremendous improvements in all aspects of life. But with it, there is a huge danger of abuse. The majority of people don't understand today's technology or how it COULD be used against them. And each year it gets a little more complex. Let's all hope there are enough people that understand how dangerous technology can be and help to educate those who don't understand. It is not about paranoia, it is about being a responsible person who wants to ensure that there are checks and balances on what information overt and covert government agencies (and businesses too) can collect and what they can do with it.

Re:These things are easy to spot and remove

[Inda]

I have been following this as I live in the area where these bins are being used. This news story is from the same area:

Bin spy bug vigilante

AN ex-cop has removed spy bugs on wheelie bins and sent them back to the council.

Former chief inspector Martin Meeks said he and his neighbours were incensed at the microchips, which measure the waste thrown away.

The 62-year-old, of Winterbourne Monkton, Wilts, said: "If I had gone into someone's house as a police officer and planted a bug without approval, there would have been hell to pay."

Kennet District Council said it was illegal to tamper with the chips.

Go to Gaol, do not pass Go, do not tamper with the chips.

http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2-2006400511,00 .html

I know it's The Sun but it has been in other local papers too.

Re:These things are easy to spot and remove

[markdavis]

>Even if he cold prove his sobriety at the time,

That is the problem. We will have to start defending ourselves all the time based on data collected "against" us. The burden of proof is shifting slowly from "innocent until proven guilty" to "guilty until proven innocent". Worse, it is immpossible to "defend" oneself from conclusions being made about us by agencies and businesses profiling us based on all kinds of data... of which they have more and more each year.

Operant conditioning?

[RKBA]

"I'm quite happy for the local council to look into charging a tax for people who can't be bothered to do so."

Seems to me a better solution would be to pay enough money for recyclables that most people would do it voluntarily. Oh I forgot, no commercial enterprise is willing to pay for recyclables because the profit margins are insignificant (ie; it costs almost as much, and sometimes more, to reuse recyclables as it does to use raw materials). But then again it isn't about saving money, or even saving the "environment" after all is it? It's about training the populace to obey government orders.

Now even the bin is out to get me

[mdhoover]

I'll just go and hide in a hole and smash my teeth up with a hammer to get at those damn transmitters they keep putting in my mouth, damnit... always listenening to every word I say...

Wha! was that a black helicopter going overhead?

/me wraps himself in tinfoil

Re:Now even the bin is out to get me

[scskier]

Please help - I saw your post about the recycle bin and mine has disappeared from my computer. How do I get this back. If you aren't the correct person where can I get some help? Thanks, scskier

Don't scan my can!

[rgravina]

Thanks to the summary authour for provding a great protest chant!

"Don't scan my can!"

Misleading argument...

[Chaffar]

What you failed to mention is that Chaudfontaine has a population of 21,012, so applying this kind of project isn't too hard. In case somebody comes and throws stuff in your bin you just need to call up the authorities and tell'em that Jean-Pierre from down the street threw his junk in your garbage can.

Re:Misleading argument...

[Blastrogath]

The local level of social ties between residents makes far more of a difference than the population of the city; there are plenty of suburbia type developments where people don't know the names of their next door neighbors, let alone the name of "Jean-Pierre from down the street". There are also apartment blocks where everyone knows everyone else. Most people won't steal as easily from someone they know.

The chance of petty theft or vandalism is almost always strongly linked to social ties between residents and the local culture of the neighborhood itself, as oposed to population density.

Re:Misleading argument...

[mikael]

In our apartment complex, we have communal rubbish bins. For every thirty six apartments, there are six large wheelie bins (plus a couple for newspapers and empty bottles/cans). Even if the bins were RFID tagged, there is no way of itemising each bag of rubbish (a shredder for bills/receipts only cost $10 from the local supermarket).

Given that the current government seems to be in favour of "garden grabbing" (the conversion of family homes with 200 foot gardens into apartments), the use of bin-tagging isn't to work out in the long term. It just seems to be another tax on home owners.

Re:Misleading argument...

[tomhudson]

"Most people won't steal as easily from someone they know."

A bit naive, I think. Most people are KILLED by someone they know. Ditto for sexual abuse of children, Certainly true for domestic assault.

The only time my place was broken into, it was by the neighbours kids 2 houses down, and yes, we got along okay with their parents, which is why it was such a "surprise."

Or look at the stupidity going on in the workplace - people swiping each others' lunches (exlax-chip cookies to the rescue!), petty theft of company property, more significant fraud (oops - someone must have stolen the laptop ... yeah, right ...).

Studies with rats show that population density is the main contributor to violent behaviour. People behave the same way. That's one reason cubicles are such poor work environments (the other being that you never have enough space, no matter how much room you have).

Of course, stuffing 4 people into a cubie and calling it a team doesn't really fix the problem.

Re:Misleading argument...

[Saib0t]

What you failed to mention is that Chaudfontaine has a population of 21,012, so applying this kind of project isn't too hard. In case somebody comes and throws stuff in your bin you just need to call up the authorities and tell'em that Jean-Pierre from down the street threw his junk in your garbage can.

Well, 2 things prevent Jean-Pierre from dumping his trash in my can.
First one is that my trashcan is, except during the pickup day, in my courtyard behind a door
Second one is that the trashcans come with KEYS

The population argument doesn't hold either. Equiping 5 pickup trucks and 5000 trashcans with RFID capable stuff is more expensive than 10 or 100 times that. Economies of scale...

So no, my argument isn't misleading, although I am willing to admit it was incomplete.

Re:Misleading argument...

[Blastrogath]

The murder corrilation is dubious because most murders are crimes of passion, while theft is not. It is far less likely that your feelings towards a stranger are going to be passionate enough to drive you to murder. OTOH, I don't doubt that population desity is a factor. I just don't think it's the most powerfull one. Commonly percieved cultural norms are followed by at least 90% of the population. People comonly lie about little things and engage in petty theft because it's percieved as an annoyance or bad habit, not as an evil act. Like picking one's nose: not evil but socially frowned apon.

Re:Misleading argument...

[tomhudson]

"Like picking one's nose: not evil but socially frowned upon."

I don't know about it not being evil - I don't want to be around when someone decides to "flick their boogers". That's just nasty!

garbage privacy?

[lemur3]

Maybe it is just me? But I think there is a big difference between the privacy of my secrets or what is done behind closed doors and the privacy of my spending or buying habits.

I don't care how many people know whether I buy Kraft Mac and Cheese and a Playboy magazine every Thursday, it really doesnt matter to me.... tons of people buy that stuff and it really doesnt annoy me if people are tracking those habits and making money off of it..

I would be very bothered to find out people were reading personal notes I wrote on little scraps of paper hidden under my pillow or spying on me with video cameras in the shower/bedroom.. or tapping into my deepest personal fears..

(I like the Kraft Spirals Mac and Cheese best, I have never bought a Playboy.. I also prefer Oscar-Meyer Wieners to Ballpark Franks.)

Fear Marketing 101

[pipingguy]

Buy cross-shredding devices (and dump the stuff in different bins while not being watched - maybe burn it first), up your crypto and be very, very wary.

Re:Fear Marketing 101

[cdrguru]

In Arizona paper is recyclable. Shredded paper is not. Because of contamination concerns, if you shred it, it goes in a landfill.

This article is retarded

[FhnuZoag]

If they could scan garbage for RFID tags and identify your purchases, then they can also LOOK THROUGH YOUR GARBAGE and identify your purchases. In fact, the former is a smaller privacy risk than the latter, because if they are mass-scanning, then you are more likely to be a statistic instead of being carefully examined as an individual. Not to mention that checking through your trash is likely to reveal bills and so on that are far greater a risk. Hell, for the same data, they can just mash together information from credit card companies and supermarkets, and they can do it secretly so you'll never hear about it here.

Legal safeguards (or incinerating your own trash) are our only real protection here, and RFID doesn't change a thing.

As for using this to institute a garbage tax, well, it won't help them win votes unless it was done sanely, so that the overall change in the tax burden is fairly unchanged. Democratic governments do not want to increase taxes unless it was neccessitated by a popular increase in spending, because their number 1 concern is to keep their jobs.

Lol, this is way too easy

[britneys 9th husband]

Got a right wing religious wacko neighbor? Throw away your condoms, XXX magazines, liquor bottles, etc in his trash. Muslim neighbor? Pork rinds. Slashdotter? Empty boxes from MS products.

Rubbish quantities

[old_unicorn]

The tagging is not so that the bins can be tracked, but so that the amount of rubbish (Garbage in US) that the households produce can be monitored. The bins get wheeled up to the rubbish lorry, which picks it up and empties it into the back, automatically. As it does so, it measures the weight of the bin and logs the address of the house. If the household produces too much waste over a long period, they will get notified/contacted/I don't know what. This is part of the attempt to reduce the overall levels of waste, by tackling it from the consumer end of the problem. I think that the intention is to ensure that people reduce waste by recycling, using bottle banks, seperating out compostable etc, and those producing large amounts of normal rubbish, (which goes to landfills), are the people who are probably not recycling, but are just throwing away everything. I don;t know what is supposed to happen if you are recycling and still producing a lot of waste.

Ahh the country life

[thorkyl]

I love having an incenerator.
All the trash company gets is ashes

My Garbage Can Might Be Spying on Me?

[Alicat1194]

The toaster was right!! I knew I shouldn't have listened to the refrigerator! (evil thing, always tempting me with sweet, sweet, caffeinated beverages) *twitch*

things i do

[FudRucker]

1. no name on my mailbox.
2. all envelopes, magazines, and junk mail is checked for my name & address before disposal in the trash.
3. salesmen and solisitors that come to my door are shooed away as potentional social engineers
4. when making purchases at local stores i use cash as often as possible and plastic is prefered over a personal check and used when only neccessary...
5. Firefox does not have a spell checker :)

Re:things i do

[Shadyman]

But they still know whose garbage can it is :)

...so swap it with your neighbors' every now and then...

Handling the trash problem the *right* way...

[b0s0z0ku]

... regulate how things are packaged. It is *fucking inexcusable* that a 3/4" x 3" USB thumb drive comes in a 6" x 6" plastic bubble package) that's difficult to open without slicing your hand open, to add injury to insult). Enourage the use of cardboard packaging which is (a) biodegradable and (b) flammable without producing too much in the way of noxious fumes.

-b.

Re:Handling the trash problem the *right* way...

[Bishop]

It would be cool if producers were taxed for all packageing based on weight and material. Non-recyclable and hard to recycle material would cost more. The taxes need to be applied to the producers directly to force change. Consumers won't care if a product costs an extra 5 cents because it is in a plastic bubble. Producers will. Taxing the consumer for the packageing won't work. Consumers often don't have a choice, and similar garbage taxes/fees encourage illegal late night dumping.

Re:Handling the trash problem the *right* way...

[tomhudson]

I hate those new packages. EVERYTHING is impossible to open without a knife.

I know that marketers think it "adds perceived value", but you know something? There's more "perceived value" in my new cell phone (I bought it without even looking at the cardboard box first) than in some $10.00 item in a plastic bubble.

Re:Handling the trash problem the *right* way...

[Cutriss]

Even better - marketers know that if you have to significantly damage or destroy the packaging to retrieve an item, you'll be less likely to return it if you're unhappy with it, under the fear that the store will not accept it returned in such a state.

Re:Handling the trash problem the *right* way...

[tomhudson]

Well, the marketers are wrong in my case - if I damage something because of the extreme measures I have to take to open it first, the store's going to take it back or have one very angry person shouting at the top of their lungs about how BS their policy is.

I did this once a few years ago over some misleading advertising (they tried to claim that the item in the ad wasn't the same one, but the stock # on the photo said otherwise). 10 minutes at the cash register, loud enough so that people on the next floor could hear, showed the ad to everyone behind me in line, got quite a crowd. Didn't stop even when they agreed the ad was misleading and that I'd get it for the advertised price. Named competitors, etc. Made sure the other people in line got the same deal.

Re:Handling the trash problem the *right* way...

[NeutronCowboy]

Most of those impossible packages are there to deter theft of small, high value items. Think of how easy it would be to swipe a 4 GB thumb drive if it would come in a perfectly sized cardboard package that opens easily. Granted, it's still stupid that mail-order businesses have to use the same crap.

Re:Handling the trash problem the *right* way...

[b0s0z0ku]

if I damage something because of the extreme measures I have to take to open it first, the store's going to take it back or have one very angry person shouting at the top of their lungs about how BS their policy is.

Better yet, put on some fake blood just before you enter the store, wear a baseball cap from your AIDS advocacy group of choice, and start yelling about how the widget didn't work and you sliced your hand putting it back into the package.

-b.

Re:Handling the trash problem the *right* way...

[b0s0z0ku]

. Think of how easy it would be to swipe a 4 GB thumb drive if it would come in a perfectly sized cardboard package that opens easily.

If they're worried about theft, keep the small objects behind the counter. Most small electronics shops already do that, especially with OEM stuff that comes un-packaged.

-b.

so you want to fill the country with plastic crap?

[fantomas]

"Only about 8% of British land is built on, and there are vast areas that could be used for landfills."

You scare me. Are you one of the filthy bastids who walks down the street dropping rubbish as you walk, goes on picnics and leaves crap everywhere, because it's not your back yard so you don't care? Mate, just because there is space to dump stuff, it doesn't mean it makes the place a whole lot nicer if you do. I'd prefer I could go for a walk in the countryside rather than walk between landfill sites in ten years time and not suffer because losers demand it's a human right to consume and throw huge amounts of crap.

A good place to start would be to educate people to use less packaging, to re-use what they've got, make sure stuff is packaged in biodegradable packing so what's thrown breaks down. Persuade people to purchase stuff that lasts longer, persuade the manufacturers not to build stuff that is designed to fall apart. Lots of issues I know but we're going to be neck deep in crap if don't start somewhere.

There's more of us, we consume more. Recycling isn't a scam per se, maybe the current implementation is flawed, I completely agree too much gets shipped off so some poor bastids get a dollar a day cooking circuit boards over open fires and chucking the rest in their drinking / washing water streams... how are we going to stop this stuipidity?

Bingo!

[KwKSilver]

You are dead right. It's less of a case of abuse at this moment, but the potential for future abuse that is scary. It is also virtually certain that the potential will be exploited--sooner or later. The next step could be as simple as tracking everything and using that to determine what our political leanings are. "Looks like Mr. Soandso is a (left-, right-) wing nut who may vote against us. Send some boys over to "persuade" him to stay home on election day." ... or religious leanings (atheist, Buddhist, Christian, Jewish, Muslim etc.) ... same thing: "Subject may harbor anti-MyReligion beliefs, get some persuaders over to soften him/her up." This has limitless potential as an adjunct tool of opression. Or even "Subject has what we have said is an unhealthy diet (or a diet we don't like): refuse medical treatment or charge triple, or triple the waiting period before treatments."

May be unlikely now, but the potential is there.

oh joy

[DragonTHC]

/. can could learn the English language.

Re:oh joy

[hclyff]

Hmm, a can of ./ ? I don't think I will be trying that any time soon. Still, I have to admit, I've seen weirder stuff in our grocery store...

Re:Remember folks, microwave your unmentionables..

[wkk2]

New microwaves have RFID scanners so they can detect RFID chips. They will only hum like they are zapping a chip. :-)

tagsDestroyed

[jasonatchooseopen]

I have not been following this technology, but it was my understanding, that the retailer's equipment would render the tag inoperable at the time the item is purchased. Is that not correct?
If that is the case, then it seems that the vast majority of tags in your garbage would already have been destroyed....

-Jason

no big deal.

[sdnoob]

unless the scanners on the trucks are scanning tags on the contents of the bin.

a tag itself on a bin is no big deal provided it's only holding a number that cannot be traced to a particular person or house by itself (without the corresponding customer database from the rubbish hauler). that'd just be an electronic version of a serial number that's stenciled on bins here (in the areas that rubbish haulers provide bins to their customers).

Excellent sig

[Dragon Bait]

This is the last straw, I will RISE UP and fight this AT ALL COSTS. They will never take my FREEDOM.
...
You take it, I don't want it...

Was your sig accidental, Freudian, or a sign that you're a comedic genius?

I'm writing code for this

[cruachan]

I'm involved with writing the code for this a project using this technology for a recycling subcontractor somewhere in rural England/Wales. The RFID simply allows us to tag a recycling box to a household then collect data on the weight of recyclate returned in each box. Housholds are issued with two boxes - paper/textiles/card and glass/cans so that's the finest level of detail being collected.

The use of the data is that it will allow the recycling organisation to work out which areas are recycling a lot of material and which are not, and the intention is to make that information available back to the public on a 'community' level. What a community is hasn't been precisely defined, but it's going to be larger, probably considerably larger, than postcode purposly so individuals can't be identified. The local authority will make use of the information by identifying areas where it needs to do more to encourage recycling, and possibly to reward communities that are actively recycling.

I honestly don't think there's any significant civil liberty issues here. In effect it's no different than a gas company monitoring the volume of gas each customer uses or a water company doing similar, it's just not been done before because up until now the technology to monitor garbage out (as opposed to the volume of a commodity going in) hasn't been available.

The Government's proposals for ID cards do cause me considerable concern so I'm not at all complacent about the matter, but presumably if we think that encouraging people to recycle is a good thing then collecting data to understand the patterns of people recycling is a helpful approach?

Re:I'm writing code for this

[Kayamon]

Unfortunately, this is all too true. People tend to assume malice when human nature is a perfectly reasonable explanation.

Residents removing the tags

[tttonyyy]

In Wiltshire the papers have been covering how some of the residents are removing the tags from their bins and throwing them away because they're afraid that the electronic devices may contain "spy cameras" and other ways in snoop on their activity. Many of these people are more afraid of technology itself, however, rather than the privacy issues. The residents of small Wiltshire towns tend to be a "bit backward" (which is being generous and not mentioning anything to do with inbreeding ;) ). The councils claim that they have no devices on refuse collection lorrys that are capable of reading the tags, and that the tags contain no personal information at all anyway - just a unique ID that may one day aid with re-uniting "lost" bins with the residents. Of course, I dare say the paranoid amongst us will no doubt be wrapping their bins in tin-foil anyway.

Ok, so the bad guys know my buying habits...

[Blakey Rat]

Ok, so the bad guys know my buying habits...

Now what? Why the hell do I give a crap whether they know my buying habits or not? How could they possibly use this knowledge to harm me?

Look, no question marks!

[6Yankee]

1. Implement retarded RFID bin thing
2. Pocket kickback from RFID maker
3. PROFIT!!!
4. Observe householders tipping rubbish all over the countryside
5. Meet landfill reduction targets
6. Avoid fine
7. MORE PROFIT!!!!
8. Increase council tax to cover clean-up of fly-tipping
9. Make only a token effort at cleaning up
10. STILL MORE PROFIT!!!

Why is this more dangerous now?

[SanityInAnarchy]

Anyone could always look through your trash and discover interesting things about you. This just makes it easier. Why is it suddenly more dangerous? What can someone do now that they couldn't do anyway?

This isn't a rhetorical question. I suspect that it is more dangerous, but I'd like to know why.

Spending public money without public consultation?

[Gax]

I'm disappointed by the Live Science article. It dismisses the subject without considering the wider implications.

Most Slashdotters have picked up on the big brother issues of tracking your purchases, but no one has mentioned the reason why the news surprised many UK citizens - we had no idea that the tags were installed until last week. The RFID tags were installed without public consultation or political discussion. I'm grudgingly impressed that the government and contractors has been able to implement such a policy so fast, but I'm shocked that they did not bother to inform the UK public - the people to whom they are responsible - of their actions. Instead, most people only learnt of the tagging system fitted to their rubbish bins last Saturday when it appeared on the front page of a newspaper. A web version of the original article that sparked outrage can be read here. What similar projects are they funding with tax payers money without public consultation?

Re:Spending public money without public consultati

[zmollusc]

What similar projects are they funding with tax payers money without public consultation?

Well, I would guess at 'many'.
When did the public last get consulted about whether to spend tax money? And voting some suit into power who then does things in your name is not real consultation.

It's the Principle That's Wrong

[sasserstyl]

There are two problems with the so-called "bugging" of bins.

First, residents were not told about the devices in there bins. This is crucial as it sets a precedent on a slippery slope - what other monitoring devices do we "not need" to be told about?

Second the broader premise of targetting individual households is wrong. From an environmental standpoint, the bulk of the problematic waste in a household's bin is *packaging*. The problem should be tackled from the other end - the packagers should be incentivised to use biodegradeable materials and to reduce packaging.

Wouldn't a simple leaflett...

[Bing Tsher E]

Wouldn't a simple leaflet widely distributed, telling people where to drill a hole in the garbage containers solve some of these problems?

I can't imagine the RFID element can be very deep in the plastic of the bin. It certainly can't be behind metal or it wouldn't reflect a RF signal to ID itself. So drill a hole through the RFIC chip and say 'goodbye' to it nicely.

If there are one or several makes and models of trashbins in an area, a leaflet with illustrations clearly indicating 'drill here' could be easily distributed. Heck, there are probably folks who would canvas through neighborhoods carrying cordless drills to provide the needed social service.

Re:Spending public money without public consultati

[sgt_doom]

Most Slashdotters have picked up on the big brother issues of tracking your purchases, but no one has mentioned the reason why the news surprised many UK citizens - we had no idea that the tags were installed until last week.

But that is precisely why the /.ers have zeroed in on the "big brother" issue. Very seldom does one have any idea anymore of what or who is RFID tagged or microchipped!

There are a tremendous amount of people in the USA who have no idea the enormous extent that the government is tracking them -- they are completely unaware of the over 51 commercial databases which the government contracts with in realtime -- everything from ChoicePoint to LexisNexus to First Data, etc., etc., et - totalitarian-frigging, cetera.

The primo reading list for the 21st century:.

Hostile Takeover by David Sirota, Armed Madhouse by Greg Palast, Jacked and also Other People's Money by Nomi Prins, Confessions of an Economic Hitman by John Perkins, No Place To Hide by Robert O'Harrow, What Every American Should Know About Who's Really Running the World by Melissa L. Rossi, American Theocracy by Kevin Phillips, Judas Economy by Wolman and Colamosca, and War is a Racket by General Smedley Butler.

Rubbish

[magicnumber]

Garbage cans all over England are under surveillance tonight.

There aren't any 'garbage cans' in England, you philistines. They're called dustbins. Get it right, yankaphones!


P.S. Anyone else going to try for the big 1000000 Slashdot member number? Any time now..

on another note

[jdcope]

Just wait...soon, would-be thieves will have the software and a PDA to roam parking lots at the mall or whatever and be able to know exactly what you purchased and put in your trunk.
Could be particularly interesting at Christmas time....isnt technology great?

Re:on another note

[mercuryPeltier]

Except that most car trunks are made out of metal. Which is pretty much the ultimate foil for RFID technology.

Re:Remember folks, microwave your unmentionables..

[Antony-Kyre]

Does that mean no more microwaving any cans of soda pop if it contains an RFID microchip?

Also in Australia

[stinkyelf]

They're also doing the same in some councils in Australia, I don't know the technical details (eg. if it's RFID) though has just recently been introduced.

Running out of tin foil

[shrtcircuit]

I have a great tin foil hat that has lasted me several years (except when my wife used part of it to cover some food in the fridge), but this trash can thing is going to be the end of me. I keep wrapping my can with the stuff to keep the nondescript men in suits driving the white can from figuring out how much cereal I eat, but the bastard trash man keeps mistaking the foil for refuse and throws it out with everything else! I've gone through 18 cases of it now. GAH!