I am contemplating writing to my MP, or the Environment Secretary (whose name I have forgotten) re my proposal.
Plastic bottles etc do not even start to decompose until at least 50,000 years and glass is pretty much rot free. Until the relatively recent green movement, much landfill is composed of plastic and glass thus fuelling carbon emissions as they very slowly rot and poison the actual soil.
I propose that our prison population and asylum seekers waiting their 6 months before a decision should dig around in the vast landfills and even new ones where irresponsible wasters throw their plastic, tin and glass away with their general refuse.
Naturally I would give them protective clothing and even masks. They will work an 8 hour day simply gathering plastic, metal, glass, old car tyres and anything safe to recycle.
This has numerous benefits.
1) It will be good for the environment (first and foremost)
2) It will make a little money re private recycling companies that can be ploughed in to the prison service
3) It is a slightly demenaing task which will add further punishment to prisoners.
4) It is manual work thus reducing prison obesity.
5) It may make a few asylum seekers think twice about applying for "Good Ol' Blighty" as a safe option
Shall I write with this idea or is it a load of weey pants. If so, how can my agenda be bettered?
Very constructive starmack. Very constructive indeed.
I forgot to add that this simple proposal will tackle the environment, prisons and asylum (not immigration) in one fair swoop. All three issues of which are current hot potatoes.
Starmack, I am afraid you have missed my point. I am not proposing a manifesto, just a proposal. The war(s), education, the health service, chav and gun culture etc are hot spuds as well.
Please answer my question, if not may I respectfully request you remain quiet. Thank you.
Bewlay - it seems to my simple eye that you've two principles mixed up, although maybe not?
You propose to stop Asylum, not Immigration. Therefore you want to allow economic migration (ie people coming to gain financially from the UK), but stop people fleeing wars/political injustice. If that's so, can you explain why please?
First and foremost I am against ALL asylum and immigration in to the UK. As stated I am fully aware the two things are distinct.
Immigration and asylum are the not the point of my proposal. The reason I state asylum, is because they are basically "locked up" for 6 months twiddling their thumbs doing absolutely nothing. In fact the law forbids them to work for such a period of time. Therefore, why not utilise their potential labor??
If they are fleeing a war torn country and fear for their lives from a despot government, then surely a few months hard work helping WORLD pollution is not going to be an issue is it?
I am placing prisoners and asylum seekers in the same boat for mere logisitcs. That is two uneconomically viable groups made up primarily of fit young men.
Simple as that. Not a question about our asylum policy.
Let's not get sidetracked into an immigration debate here (for the record I disagree with the anti-immigration sentiment, but that's not what we're debating). I can see it working as an environmental solution viz. the plastic and glass information - but I will ask if you have a source on that, just for verification. I can't really see it doing much for the other issues though but it's fine as an environmental proposal.
I don't see anything really wrong with it exempting the fact that it might be expensive. For instance prisoners need to be kept secure (which is less easy than it sounds - particularly out in a landfill), which could cost extra cash. Plus all the extra protective clothing.
ward-minter, if ithey don't begin to decompose for 50,000 years how are the plastic bottles fuelling the carbon emissions and how much carbon does a decomposing glass bottle emit as a matter of interest?.
my local council says they DO NOT BIO DEGRADE AT ALL. So 50,000 years want I learnt from the TV is an underestimate.
TCL, if you do not understand how glass stops natural decompostion of carbon matter by simply filling space and effecting the whole bio-degradable system and thus unstabling the water table and eco-plateau it lays in situe in/on, then I am afraid I do not understand either.
Slightly off topic, but was thinking the other day about how wasteful we'd become. In the seventies, all pop bottles and most beer bottles had a deposit on them so they could be returned, thus it was green, and cheper too as in effect you only paid for the drink in the bottle, and not the pacakaging.
I do not claim to be an expert in global warming and the effects of carbon emissions but there appears to be a contradiction in yir statements. In one you say plastic and glass fuel emissions as they very slowly rot and in another, the glass stops decomposition of carbon matter.
BB.......yes, it's not a bad idea but I just know that there will be cries of "Our Human Rights" from all those individuals concerned.
It appears that a lot of individuals are reading but not really understanding your proposal and are going off at a tangent!
What planet Starmack is on I don 't know. What has "take money off the rich Tories" got to do with your proposal? What about the rich Labourites then ????
the bottles I referred to are made from corn (the crop, not the toe complaint) and are made to biodegrade quickly. Corn bottles are the wave of the future. Next maize cars and wheat houses.