Rats
Keith Parkins | 01.05.2007 14:25 | Ecology | Health | Social Struggles
We are seeing a massive explosion in rat populations across the country thanks to imposition of fortnightly waste collection. Our problems are only just beginning as we put public health at risk.
"There is huge anger out there. And it will only get worse as more councils switch over to fortnightly collections." -- Doretta Cocks, Campaign for Weekly Waste Collection
Imagine rats pouring out of the sewers. The stuff of science fiction or a horror movie. In today's world of fortnightly waste collection, fast food takeaways, it is all too real.
There are an estimated 60 to 100 million rats in the country. Roughly one rat to every one of us. Rats though breed much faster. In ideal conditions, one female can produce ten young, ten times a year.
Water companies used to regularly clear out the sewers of rats, but those days long went long ago along with water privatisation.
The rat population has increased by over 60%. We are also seeing a generation of super rats.
Against strong local opposition, over 100 local councils have switched to fortnightly collection of waste. Bringing with it problems of stench of rotting rubbish, spread of disease, bins overrun with flies and maggots, overflowing bins, rubbish strewn streets, fly-tipping, back yard burning of rubbish.
Rats are disease vectors, not just of bubonic plague, the cause of the Black Death which killed off half the population of Medieval Europe. Rats also carry cryptosporidium (a cause of gastroenteritis), salmonella, listeria (which causes septicaemia), toxoplasmosis (blindness), Q fever, Hantaan fever, and the lethal Weil’s disease.
As more local authorities switch to fortnightly, the rat population will inevitably increase.
Rubbish left in the bin for two weeks leads to an explosion in disease organisms including moulds, listeria, campylobacter, clostridium, e-coli
Campylobacter is the most common cause of gastroenteritis. It can be fatal. Having once suffered from gastroenteritis and ended up in hospital on a drip, I would not wish it on anyone.
Clostridium belongs to the same family as C-Diff, tetanus and deadly botulism. Induces vomiting, diarrhoea and fever. Spores in open wounds cause gangrene and even death. Go to your bin with a small cut and you run the risk of being killed.
Listeria can be fatal, is a common cause of miscarriage.
The Victorians placed on the Statute Book the Health Act 1875, which gave us clean water, refuse collection, sewers. Now we seem to be going backwards.
Local councils are being encouraged to produce less waste, recycle more, targets are being set and fines will be levied if the targets are not.
Local councils in turn are using this as an excuse to cut services, with a wing and a prayer that it may also somehow miraculously cut waste, increase recycling. But it won't, the waste has to go somewhere, it will not overnight halve, as a halving waste collection would imply.
In the Rotten Borough of Rushmoor, placing several thousand households on fortnightly waste collection at the beginning of the year has already led to fly-tipping, smelly bins, bins overrun with maggots, rubbish-strewn streets. But according to Roland Dibbs, deputy leader of the council and the man responsible for this crass policy, there has been only one complaint, few people are bothered and of the handful who have troubled to mention it to him, they are fully behind a cut in services!
If you do get rats, do not look to your local council for help, as along with cuts in refuse collection, many have also cut their pest control service.
It is hardly surprising that in the run up to local election on Thursday, fortnightly waste collection has become the local election issue.
Websites
http://www.thetruthinrushmoor.co.uk/
http://www.crow.uk.com/
http://www.weeklywaste.com/
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/bins
http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/AxetheBinTax/
http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/WeeklyRubbish/
http://www.recyclenow.com/
http://www.letsrecycle.com/info/localauth/league/2005ranked.jsp
References
Guy Basnett, Binfected: Killer bins, News of the World, 22 April 2007
http://www.newsoftheworld.co.uk/story_pages/news/news4.shtml
Guy Basnett & Robbie Collin, We've all bin sick, News of the World, 29 April 2007
http://www.newsoftheworld.co.uk/story_pages/news/news3.shtml
Bin Them: New council proposals on rubbish collection are, well, garbage, The Times, 13 April 2007
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/leading_article/article1647550.ece
Lester R Brown, Plan B 2.0, Norton, 2006
Steve Doughty and Peter Stebbings, Are yo next for bin round misery?, Daily Mail, 30 April 2007
John-Paul Flintoff, Eeeeeek!! Overflowing bins and pest control cutbacks are causing Britain’s vermin population to boom, The Sunday Times, 29 April 2007
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article1720064.ece
A G Fox, Dustbins may prove to be the battleground for May's local elections, letters, Daily Telegraph, 20 April 2007
Jason Groves, Taxpayers in revolt over bin collections, Daily Express, 15 April 2007
http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/4468
Mathew Hickley, Fly-tipping menace of cutting the bin rounds, Daily Mail, 28 February 2007
George Jones, 9m homes no longer have weekly bin collection, Daily Telegraph, 19 April 2007
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/04/19/nbins19.xml
By Jo Macfarlane, When are two weeks not a fortnight? In council speak, Daily Express, 27 April 2007
Eric Murray, Panic measures. The Oxford Times, 27 April 2007
http://www.theoxfordtimes.net/news/letters/display.var.1354110.0.panic_measures.php
Keith Parkins, A sense of the masses - a manifesto for the new revolution, www.heureka.clara.net, October 2003
http://www.heureka.clara.net/gaia/democracy.htm
Keith Parkins, Curitiba – Designing a sustainable city, www.heureka.clara.net, April 2006
http://www.heureka.clara.net/gaia/curitiba.htm
Keith Parkins, Recycling – a tale of two councils, Indymedia UK, 5 January 2007
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2007/01/359341.html?c=on
Keith Parkins, Fortnightly rubbish collection creating a plague of rats, Indymedia UK, 8 January 2007
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2007/01/359493.html
Keith Parkins, Recycling – the good, the bad and the ugly, Indymedia UK, 7 February 2007
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2007/02/361715.html
Keith Parkins, Recycling in the Rotten Borough of Rushmoor goes from bad to worse, Indymedia UK, 9 February 2007
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2007/02/361842.html
Keith Parkins, Recycling and waste reduction being used as an excuse to cut services, Indymedia UK, 19 February 2007
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2007/02/362712.html
Keith Parkins, Opposition grows in Rushmoor to cuts in refuse collection, Indymedia UK, 27 February 2007
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2007/02/363743.html
Keith Parkins, Fortnightly collection of rubbish an unmitigated disaster, Indymedia UK, 26 March 2007
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2007/03/366221.html
Keith Parkins, Fortnightly refuse collection, Indymedia UK, 10 April 2007
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2007/04/367639.html
Keith Parkins, Council to be referred to Ombudsman for failing to collect rubbish, Indymedia UK, 13 April 2007
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2007/04/368012.html
Keith Parkins, Local elections bin backlash, Indymedia UK, 24 April 2007
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2007/04/368649.html
Keith Parkins, Bin revolution gathers pace, Indymedia UK, 24 April 2007
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2007/04/369120.html
Tom Rawstorne, So where does all your recycling end up?, Daily Mail, 30 April 2007
Recycling 'risks binmen's lungs', BBC News on-line, 29 March 2003
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/2891609.stm
Jill Sherman, Collecting dustbins fortnightly is a rubbish idea, say campaigners, The Times, 27 April 2007
Steven Swinford, Asthma link to late bin pickup, The Sunday Times, 22 April 2007
Imagine rats pouring out of the sewers. The stuff of science fiction or a horror movie. In today's world of fortnightly waste collection, fast food takeaways, it is all too real.
There are an estimated 60 to 100 million rats in the country. Roughly one rat to every one of us. Rats though breed much faster. In ideal conditions, one female can produce ten young, ten times a year.
Water companies used to regularly clear out the sewers of rats, but those days long went long ago along with water privatisation.
The rat population has increased by over 60%. We are also seeing a generation of super rats.
Against strong local opposition, over 100 local councils have switched to fortnightly collection of waste. Bringing with it problems of stench of rotting rubbish, spread of disease, bins overrun with flies and maggots, overflowing bins, rubbish strewn streets, fly-tipping, back yard burning of rubbish.
Rats are disease vectors, not just of bubonic plague, the cause of the Black Death which killed off half the population of Medieval Europe. Rats also carry cryptosporidium (a cause of gastroenteritis), salmonella, listeria (which causes septicaemia), toxoplasmosis (blindness), Q fever, Hantaan fever, and the lethal Weil’s disease.
As more local authorities switch to fortnightly, the rat population will inevitably increase.
Rubbish left in the bin for two weeks leads to an explosion in disease organisms including moulds, listeria, campylobacter, clostridium, e-coli
Campylobacter is the most common cause of gastroenteritis. It can be fatal. Having once suffered from gastroenteritis and ended up in hospital on a drip, I would not wish it on anyone.
Clostridium belongs to the same family as C-Diff, tetanus and deadly botulism. Induces vomiting, diarrhoea and fever. Spores in open wounds cause gangrene and even death. Go to your bin with a small cut and you run the risk of being killed.
Listeria can be fatal, is a common cause of miscarriage.
The Victorians placed on the Statute Book the Health Act 1875, which gave us clean water, refuse collection, sewers. Now we seem to be going backwards.
Local councils are being encouraged to produce less waste, recycle more, targets are being set and fines will be levied if the targets are not.
Local councils in turn are using this as an excuse to cut services, with a wing and a prayer that it may also somehow miraculously cut waste, increase recycling. But it won't, the waste has to go somewhere, it will not overnight halve, as a halving waste collection would imply.
In the Rotten Borough of Rushmoor, placing several thousand households on fortnightly waste collection at the beginning of the year has already led to fly-tipping, smelly bins, bins overrun with maggots, rubbish-strewn streets. But according to Roland Dibbs, deputy leader of the council and the man responsible for this crass policy, there has been only one complaint, few people are bothered and of the handful who have troubled to mention it to him, they are fully behind a cut in services!
If you do get rats, do not look to your local council for help, as along with cuts in refuse collection, many have also cut their pest control service.
It is hardly surprising that in the run up to local election on Thursday, fortnightly waste collection has become the local election issue.
Websites
http://www.thetruthinrushmoor.co.uk/ http://www.crow.uk.com/ http://www.weeklywaste.com/ http://www.dailymail.co.uk/bins http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/AxetheBinTax/ http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/WeeklyRubbish/ http://www.recyclenow.com/ http://www.letsrecycle.com/info/localauth/league/2005ranked.jsp References
Guy Basnett, Binfected: Killer bins, News of the World, 22 April 2007
http://www.newsoftheworld.co.uk/story_pages/news/news4.shtml Guy Basnett & Robbie Collin, We've all bin sick, News of the World, 29 April 2007
http://www.newsoftheworld.co.uk/story_pages/news/news3.shtml Bin Them: New council proposals on rubbish collection are, well, garbage, The Times, 13 April 2007
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/leading_article/article1647550.ece Lester R Brown, Plan B 2.0, Norton, 2006
Steve Doughty and Peter Stebbings, Are yo next for bin round misery?, Daily Mail, 30 April 2007
John-Paul Flintoff, Eeeeeek!! Overflowing bins and pest control cutbacks are causing Britain’s vermin population to boom, The Sunday Times, 29 April 2007
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article1720064.ece A G Fox, Dustbins may prove to be the battleground for May's local elections, letters, Daily Telegraph, 20 April 2007
Jason Groves, Taxpayers in revolt over bin collections, Daily Express, 15 April 2007
http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/4468 Mathew Hickley, Fly-tipping menace of cutting the bin rounds, Daily Mail, 28 February 2007
George Jones, 9m homes no longer have weekly bin collection, Daily Telegraph, 19 April 2007
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/04/19/nbins19.xml By Jo Macfarlane, When are two weeks not a fortnight? In council speak, Daily Express, 27 April 2007
Eric Murray, Panic measures. The Oxford Times, 27 April 2007
http://www.theoxfordtimes.net/news/letters/display.var.1354110.0.panic_measures.php Keith Parkins, A sense of the masses - a manifesto for the new revolution, www.heureka.clara.net, October 2003
http://www.heureka.clara.net/gaia/democracy.htm Keith Parkins, Curitiba – Designing a sustainable city, www.heureka.clara.net, April 2006
http://www.heureka.clara.net/gaia/curitiba.htm Keith Parkins, Recycling – a tale of two councils, Indymedia UK, 5 January 2007
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2007/01/359341.html?c=on Keith Parkins, Fortnightly rubbish collection creating a plague of rats, Indymedia UK, 8 January 2007
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2007/01/359493.html Keith Parkins, Recycling – the good, the bad and the ugly, Indymedia UK, 7 February 2007
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2007/02/361715.html Keith Parkins, Recycling in the Rotten Borough of Rushmoor goes from bad to worse, Indymedia UK, 9 February 2007
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2007/02/361842.html Keith Parkins, Recycling and waste reduction being used as an excuse to cut services, Indymedia UK, 19 February 2007
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2007/02/362712.html Keith Parkins, Opposition grows in Rushmoor to cuts in refuse collection, Indymedia UK, 27 February 2007
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2007/02/363743.html Keith Parkins, Fortnightly collection of rubbish an unmitigated disaster, Indymedia UK, 26 March 2007
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2007/03/366221.html Keith Parkins, Fortnightly refuse collection, Indymedia UK, 10 April 2007
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2007/04/367639.html Keith Parkins, Council to be referred to Ombudsman for failing to collect rubbish, Indymedia UK, 13 April 2007
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2007/04/368012.html Keith Parkins, Local elections bin backlash, Indymedia UK, 24 April 2007
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2007/04/368649.html Keith Parkins, Bin revolution gathers pace, Indymedia UK, 24 April 2007
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2007/04/369120.html Tom Rawstorne, So where does all your recycling end up?, Daily Mail, 30 April 2007
Recycling 'risks binmen's lungs', BBC News on-line, 29 March 2003
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/2891609.stm Jill Sherman, Collecting dustbins fortnightly is a rubbish idea, say campaigners, The Times, 27 April 2007
Steven Swinford, Asthma link to late bin pickup, The Sunday Times, 22 April 2007
Keith Parkins
Homepage:
http://www.heureka.clara.net/gaia/
Comments
Hide the following 5 comments
load of crap
01.05.2007 21:30
love and rage xxx
goodygoody
The real reason for the rat population explosion
01.05.2007 21:34
If you have a rat problem, the answer is in your own hands. Use your wheeled bin, ensure that the lid is kept closed, don't drop refuse on the ground and don't litter the streets with fast food waste.
Instead of whining and making spurious complaints - we have fortnightly collection with no rat problem here, people should take some responsibility for keeping their own neighbourhood clean and tidy. To fail to do so is antisocial behaviour.
Mike
THE SKY'S FALLING IN!
02.05.2007 09:00
Whatever next? You'll be blaming the sun for giving you sunburn? Booze for giving you a hangover?
And stop reading the Daily Mail; Weekly World News has a stricter Fact Checking Policy.
Hate Male
I do hope...
02.05.2007 11:07
Mike
read what is written
04.05.2007 17:39
The World Health Organisation has warned that in a temperate climate such as ours, waste should be collected at least once a week to safeguard public health.
In France, Spain, Italy, they collect waste daily or every other day, generate less waste than we do, recycle more.
In Westminster, waste is collected 2-3 times a week. In the constituencies of Tony Blair, Ruth Kelly, John Prescott, waste is collected weekly.
Tony Blair has stated he wished to see waste collected weekly. As has Mayor of London Ken Livingstone.
It is not the Daily Mail that has warned of an increase in rats, they have merely reported on the fact, it is the National Pest Technicians Association. [NPTA National Rodent Survey Report 2006]
It is not the Daily Mail that has warned of an increase in disease, they have merely reported on the fact, a paper published in the journal Science of the Total Environment, found rubbish left out for longer periods produced tens of thousands more fugal spores, with the possibility of links to asthma and other attacks. The air around bins emptied fortnightly had ten times the amount of fugal spores and bacteria than bins emptied weekly.
And so the list goes on ...
In 2003, research in Norway and Sweden identified that bin men who had to handle two-week-old waste were suffering inflammation of their respiratory tracks, and warning was given of the long-term health implications. At the time the Local Government Association commented that bin men in England would not suffer these problems as waste was collected weekly. Comments that have been conveniently forgotten.
The Country Land Owners Association has reported an increase in fly-tipping. The latest government figures show a 10% increase.
In the Rotten Borough of Rushmoor, where several thousand households have been forced onto fortnightly waste collection against their will in a six month so-called 'trial', there has been a marked increase in fly-tipping. Oxford has overflowing bins and rubbish strewn streets as a direct result of the introduction of fortnightly waste collection.
Households in the Rotten Borough of Rushmoor on the fortnightly 'trial' are reporting maggot infested bins. A problem they never encountered when their refuse was collected weekly.
Forcing households onto fortnightly does not mean less waste is collected, it is just collected less often (with all the implications for public health), less that which is burnt, fly-tipped or carted to the local tip.
If we are to cut waste we have to have an intelligent response, not a knee-jerk reaction which is used as an excuse to cut vital public services.
Keith