On Thu, 4 Feb 2010, MIG wrote:

Recycling, with all the extra transportation, washing and other
processes, is of very dubious benefit, even it it's done properly.

Except for aluminium, which takes an awful amount of energy to make, but
much less to recycle. According to this interesting powerpoint file (in
which slide 10 is also good, about the lifecycle energy cost of a car):

http://ec.europa.eu/enterprise/polic...von_zengen.ppt

It takes 5% as much energy to recycle as to produce, and it looks like
production takes 10 kWh per kg, hang on, i've just googled a bit and it
seems 13.5 kWh/kg is the current figure, so for every 15 gram pop can you
recycle, you're saving almost 700 kJ. To put that in context, that's as
much energy as you'd expend spending an hour playing Wii tennis. Er, that
doesn't help, does it? Anyway, the word recycles enough aluminium to save
2.3 exajoules of energy a year, which at 0.43 kg CO2 per kWh (a number
which i found on a website) is 270 million tonnes. That sounds like a lot.

The economics for steel aren't as good, but they're still pretty good.

Other things, less so. I would love to see a proper analysis of the
resource benefits of recycling various kinds of material.

tom

--
drink beer and forget about gods. -- derslangerman

On Thu, 4 Feb 2010 20:04:20 +0000 someone who may be Tom Anderson
wrote this:-

But what if it had been a bomb?!?

You mean that it was not a smart card, but instead a smart bomb.


--
David Hansen, Edinburgh
I will *always* explain revoked encryption keys, unless RIP prevents me
http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts2000...#pt3-pb3-l1g54

On Wed, 03 Feb 2010 23:54:07 +0000 someone who may be Ivor The
Engine wrote this:-

Same response if you enter a valid 10-digit phone number, as in 01nnn
nnnnn. We still have them round here, despite what some computer
programmers think...

Some people put actual telephone numbers into forms?

How quaint:-)


--
David Hansen, Edinburgh
I will *always* explain revoked encryption keys, unless RIP prevents me
http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts2000...#pt3-pb3-l1g54

On Thu, 04 Feb 2010 21:03:27 +0000, David Hansen
wrote:

Some people put actual telephone numbers into forms?

How quaint:-)

Well, if Boris is tracking me he needs to know how to get in touch...
8-)

In message , David Hansen
writes
How refundable it is in "the real world" is a matter which has not
yet been resolved. If someone can provide further information the
matter may be resolved. I may then be happy to accept that I was
wrong and it is a deposit. Until then it will remain a price in my
view.
I had an Oyster card with money on it, but it failed so after getting
home to the Lake District I returned it to TfL. I received not only
the outstanding balance but also the three pounds that the card had cost
me.
--
Clive

On Thu, 04 Feb 2010 13:41:43 +0000, David Hansen
wrote:

On Thu, 4 Feb 2010 10:59:12 +0000 (UTC) someone who may be
wrote this:-

I think the main problem is the bylaws councils can make up on a whim and
then have the legal right to enforce. Fining people for not putting their
rubbish in the correct recycle bins

Not made up by councillors on a whim AFAIK. Instead the Westminster
bunch introduced fines, which some councils have taken up
enthusiastically.

If government was actually interested in waste it would avoid the
over emphasis on recycling, which encourages the attitude that "it
doesn't matter what I buy, as long as I put it in the right
container when I have finished with it." A few years ago Scotland
was putting a Murrayfield stadium of stuff to landfill and if it met
all its recycling targets that was going to grow to two Murrayfields
a year by something like 2030. Madness. Since then the new Scottish
Nationalist government has announced a different plan, but I am not
up to date enough to know whether it is more sensible than the
previous Labour/Liberal Democrat government's plan [1].

What government should be doing is encouraging waste minimisation
and re-use. The residual recycling would be sorted at the kerbside
by council staff

You might be willing to pay the extra council tax but are your
neighbours as willing ?

and put into multi-compartment vehicles. That would
just about eliminate contamination and get better prices for the
materials. For any residual stuff going to landfill, pay per throw.


[1] plan being as generous word to use about it.

On Wed, 03 Feb 2010 11:29:08 +0000, Graeme
wrote:
[snip Hansen "fine" lingo]
I'm currently trying to establish whether the Dutch Chipkart operates the
same way so that I can get one for use around Amsterdam and then retrieve my
deposit and any balance when I leave. And believe me it won't be the last
thing that occurrs to me when I get to Schipol.

If you register the card, it becomes "personal" and you can submit it
with a form to get a balance above EUR5 put on your bank account... oh
dear, that assumes an NL account. Minus 2.50 "administratekosten".

If it's not registered, aka "anonieme", no such luck. Mine's not
(yet?) registered. No, there's not a lot you can do in Schiphol Plaza
to return for refund. The NS would, unless I read ov-chipkaart.nl
incorrectly, do little on the spot.

TBH, it makes Oyster's pain points look good. No reason why they can't
put a "return me" machine in place to suck in the card, spit out
coins, and send you on your merry way. Same applies to Oyster - which
also needs "correct mistakes" machines instead of the call centre
IMHO.

Topping up the OV is also painful for us visitors. The system's geared
towards direct debits from bank accounts - suspicion amongst the
population it helps sneak in price increases of the "hissing goose"
variety.

21st century web sites: less use friendly and offer less than bloke at
counter.

Anyway - to get one, the best places are the GVB metro stations of Ams
CS or Waterlooplein. The GVB machines can spit new cards out on the
spot (no NS ones can do this, see why later). The staff that used to
grab miscreants off the metro now hang around the machines helping
users, cos the machines, as per 21st century automation policy, are
not very user friendly. They take CCs! Both the GVB and RET go against
the flow and accept CCs. Pay EUR57 for a card with EUR50 credit "op
saldo". For train travel, the NS has to enable it so they know if you
use 1st or 2nd class travel (which is why many people seem to carry
two..) Go to a station counter and fill in a form for that. Min 20 on
the card for trains, IIRC 4 for RET, HTM and GVB services. For the NS
you can also play a "where is the damn checkin/uit thing" game: gates
at many stations, platform validators in Eindhoven, end of the north
corridor ungated validators in AmsCS.
--
Old anti-spam address cmylod at despammed dot com appears broke
So back to cmylod at bigfoot dot com

On Fri, 05 Feb 2010 02:40:26 +0000 someone who may be Charles Ellson
wrote this:-

What government should be doing is encouraging waste minimisation
and re-use. The residual recycling would be sorted at the kerbside
by council staff

You might be willing to pay the extra council tax but are your
neighbours as willing ?

This is not as simple as it may at first appear. The aim is to
reduce the amount of recycling by minimising waste and reusing. As a
result the number of staff will either stay about the same or
reduce.


--
David Hansen, Edinburgh
I will *always* explain revoked encryption keys, unless RIP prevents me
http://www.opsi.gov.uk/acts/acts2000...#pt3-pb3-l1g54

In message
Colum Mylod wrote:

On Wed, 03 Feb 2010 11:29:08 +0000, Graeme
wrote: [snip Hansen "fine" lingo]
I'm currently trying to establish whether the Dutch Chipkart operates the
same way so that I can get one for use around Amsterdam and then retrieve
my deposit and any balance when I leave. And believe me it won't be the
last thing that occurrs to me when I get to Schipol.

If you register the card, it becomes "personal" and you can submit it with
a form to get a balance above EUR5 put on your bank account... oh dear,
that assumes an NL account. Minus 2.50 "administratekosten".

If it's not registered, aka "anonieme", no such luck. Mine's not (yet?)
registered. No, there's not a lot you can do in Schiphol Plaza to return
for refund. The NS would, unless I read ov-chipkaart.nl incorrectly, do
little on the spot.

[snip]

So no practical use for a tourist, are strippenkarts still valid on the
trams?

--
Graeme Wall

This address not read, substitute trains for rail
Transport Miscellany at www.greywall.demon.co.uk/rail
Photo galleries at http://graeme-wall.fotopic.net/

On Feb 5, 8:40*am, Graeme wrote:

So no practical use for a tourist, are strippenkarts still valid on the
trams?

Not everywhere, AIUI - they're being phased out. But then if you buy
a 45-Strippenkaart it's not as if you can get a refund on bits of that
either.

Neil