Anyone totally clued up ref RUBBISH rules?

General Discussion
1

I got the usual bill for rubbish collection together with another message from another department, telling me to state any reasons for non payment... if I couldnt or didnt want to (not sure about that..)pay it...


Since I live too far away from the road to use the weekly bin men service... and less rubbish than ever before...which I manage myself..I said ...


No. Thank you..


Dont think I will pay for this service any more... as I cannot use it.


However....got a letter yesterday... saying I must pay it, and its going up to around 215e...


whaaat!?


I thought...


thats criminal... how many vaccinations would that dosh pay for, for children in x or y countries where the Medecins sans Frontieres do their good work..? They sent a recent note to tell me even a tiny sum like one euro a week, regular payment... saves lives..


That charity is one I like ...


BUT...I must send 200 e... to pay for a service I never use...!!!


??? Is someone kidding me?


I got another letter next day...


To say the huissieres? will come to take my furniture away... if I refuse to pay this money... for this service...


that I do not use.


I thought... wonderful!! reply at once...Im deep into minimalism.. and have one old fridge and a washing machine, that I would be glad for them to carry off to the tip...apart from that ...I have space, work, squished paint tubes and arts accoutrements...and a rolled up futon. END. I dont do `furniture`...


Theres the car... IF they could get it to start...


an ancient laptop with japanese operating system... therefore unsaleable...


and ummmm...cans of cat food?


So how long would I have to stay in gaol? Is the food ok?


And would the debt be recurring ...with compound interest?


Am I REALLY obliged by law ..to cough up,


and pay for ZERO SERVICE?


Can anyone tell me...what the real facts of the situation are?


I cant bear the thought of sending 200 quids to Smitcom...


when I might send it to MSF


thank you for any thoughts........

2

After my own magnificent experience ref this garbage issue...the best place to get best info...and help..about garbage bills...could be the local Mairie. The thing is..M.Le Maire is a legal whizz.and has more 'power' than the cops and more info than notaries...(or something like that)..I mean...the Maire...is not the same thing as a Brit Mayor.
I suspect other France Survivors could make that point better than I have...ref the booze... I'm not enthusiastic ref getting blotto, not even mildly..and half a glass with water...scrambles my brains.. ...but...I go wild for Hyper-U riz caramel...

3

BLISSFULLY HAPPY ENDING, TO THE RUBBISH STORY.
I LOVE FRANCE....
On closer inspection...I discovered, at first...my new bill was to be 260 e !!
and unable to recall the last time I had used the rubbish collection service...except for the bottle bank, maybe twice per year...the charge looked to me to be wildly OTT.
The nice lady at the Mairie, made the mistake of looking mildly sympathetic...so, I told her
what I felt...I kept it brief..I didn't fall on the floor screaming or bang my head on her counter..I knew it was not interesting.. and I knew she could do zero ...
I was so wrong! A week or_so later..I got an astonishing copy of the letter, sent to the garbage co (who.. I must add.. are all, always, charming ...usually, anyway) From M. le Maire...defending my POV against such a walloping great big fee, describing my house situation (far from the road) plus all relevant details, inc one I never dreamed of!...
After a bit more confusion, caused entirely by my still-feeble-after-almost-20-years-French...which ought to cast me as Not-Worth-The-Trouble... I found I am to get a refund plus a reduction to less than half the required sum. The company had not attempted to rip off an ageing alien..it had simply failed (blamelessly)...to explain in careful pidgin French or English..for foreigners.. each category of garbage collection payment, and having received no better clarification from me...had decided, for me...how much I should pay. Now...with my perfectly reasonable yearly bill....I've got a new plastic key...for the big bins in my nearest shopping town.. Convenient for me...and very easy.... I feel loved. Very much appreciate the kindness of all concerned.

4

Things changed about twenty years ago when the separate bills were brought in. Originally it was seen as yet another way to screw the householder as before the charges were included in the Rates bills.

5

Ours is marked as a separate item on the taxe fonciere bill. i find it rather novel that as we now live on the edge of a small town,all we have to do is pop the bin outside the front door and they collect it -never had that before.

6

Yep, this is just about how the majority of France seems to be nowadays with a Communauté de Communes or similar. It saves costs and bureaucracy apparently.

7

Mark, I've lived in 4 different département and it's always been separate ;-)

8

We have had separate bills from an independent organisation (contracted to our commune) to clear rubbish for many years. Several communes got together to save on costs.

9

Jeanette,

Is this 200 euro bill separate from the tax habitation? My rubbish collection cost is included in my tax habitation, not charged on a separate bill. I do not think it is possible to choose which parts of the tax you can pay, you just pay the lot then appeal. Have a word with your mairie & tresor public.

If it is a separate bill then it can be argued that you are being charged for a service they are not providing but again visit the Smitcom office.

10

I think our village finances would collapse without empty or partially empty/occupied houses were exonerated. Many, many houses are second homes- possibly 25/30% and you pay fora year round service whether you are there or not and how much rubbish you may generate. There is a very good decheterie which is open three days a week with good recycling and it's free. We are in Park Naturel and I would fear that without these facilities fly tipping would occur, as in the UK. As it is the whole are is remarkably tidy compared to the UK. There are a few examples (often British) or elderly farmers where rubbish or old car accumulations occur. Everything has to be taken to a skip and there are weekly collections from skips. (In the UK many collections are now fortnightly). On balance I think everything works well in these departments here. (In the UK I once had my brand new car vandalised by, Iam 100% certain bin men) after I complained about the shoddy service in Lambeth back in the 70s, so I am rather biased!

11

Unfortunately, not everyone has a social conscience and if householders could opt out of this tax, some would cheat by putting their rubbish in other people's bins, while others would indulge in fly tipping. So, in a waste generating society, it is a price we all have to pay to live in a (relatively) clean environment.

12

Jeanette, I found an interesting blog on the subject. Basically, yes you can compost cat waste, but you need to make a separate composting bin. You can't mix it with your other composting material. https://glenbrookzerowaste.wordpress.com/2010/03/30/how-to-compost-your-cats-litter/

13

Ok Jeanette, thanks for the explanation.

I believe I was told not long ago that it is not obligatory to pay for waste disposal. I pay the minimum rate for my bin collections living alone but I have two collections per week when one collection is more than adequate but I have to pay for two. I asked, rather toungue in cheek if I could opt out of the system altogether saying that I could take my own rubbish to the tip just down the road and the council came back and explained I would not be granted a card to enter the communal tip if I wasn't registered as a 'user' so it's a catch 22 situation it seems.

I don't particulary object to paying a separate fee for rubbish collection it's just I would like to pay for just the one collection rather than two.

14

An aside....while thinking..."compost"..... Is it OK to put cat poo, (ie....from litter tray and litter 'vegetale')...on compost heaps? My oldest cat is too ancient to be required to go out in the rain and dig holes....

15

Veronique, David and Andrew...Im very pleased to find my q...has transmogrified into a political/philosophical ...sort of...confrontation.?!.

I like that a lot, because...of course... you are quite right in drawing parallels.... my irate stand on garbage and Mrs Thatchers ideas of.... "Look after number one and screw the rest of the ninnies that dont, or can't , make it on their own?" ( Though to be fair...I dont know a lot about Mrs T....or critiques of her govt methods.). I would like to read more thoughts on that idea, if anyone has them...dont worry about tearing my thoughts to shreds...that's all OKwith me, I learn a lot !

16

Do you mean me, Peter? If so, I am passionately minimal...find no joy *at all* in buying stuff, unless its essential...shopping is death....but all compostable garbage is saved ...It is too shady in most of my terrain.. for a veg garden.....and I dont want to cut the trees down.

Theres almost no soil..here (I'm blessed with a tiny rocky balcony.....and more rocks covered in thistles, that disappear downriver when the winter floods come)...but saving compost means... eventually..... I will pick the best spot for a small veg patch...and use my store of compost there.. I have two likely places..but a one-person compost heap grows very very slowly.

So..cans, for dog food....and some paper /cardboard wrapping ...which burns and is needed as fuel.. for my BBQ and small stove ....is about all that is left over. If you save your dog food cans....the big recycler companies.pay.... for scrap metal....but my one ancient dog will not eat her way to my fortune. As scrap metal dealer...still...I'm glad to deliver the cans to that company...(Tri-Ouest) because they are a shining source of different kinds of scrap metal...that I can use in my work. Low price.

17

So, what do you do with your domestic garbage ?

18

Good to discover more thoughts on my question...very much appreciated.!!! Thank you
..I hope its OK to write more later....

19

Jeanette, what it boils down to is very simple: there is a rubbish collection service provided in your commune, the lorry has an established route along which people drop their rubbish in designated places for pick-up, the place for your rubbish doesn't suit you.

That doesn't mean you stop paying for the service, the service is there, it is provided: and it is your responsibility to get your rubbish to the right place, or one of the right places.

The letter they have sent you isn't asking you if you want to opt out, it is asking you why you haven't paid and when you are going to. It has been followed up by threats of what they can do, should you not pay up, which they are entirely within their rights to make.

I'd eat humble pie if I were you & cough up sharpish in the hope they don't charge you even more.

20

So what do you do with your domestic garbage ?