The benefit of belonging to the EAUC Member list is not just that you are kept up to date with issues that universities are trying (and often succeeding) to resolve, but also that eagle-eyed members share interesting events that they have spotted from round the country. Today is one of those days, with Claire Charles forwarding details of Liverpool's talking (actually, singing) waste bins.
The story is carried in Environment Times. The gist is that when something is thrown into a bin, some bloke from the 1960s sings "Thank you very much ...", or somesuch. It is an initiative of the Keep Britain Untidy group, and there are already 1000 such bins (disguised as penguins) in schools it seems.
I don't want to be any more of a party-pooper than I usually am, but it strikes me that this is not really a waste initiative as everything in the bin's likely to go into landfill – including the symbolic copy of The Sun that features in the Environment Times story. So, if it's teaching people anything, it seems likely to be: don't bother to be discriminating about your rubbish: just bin it.
Another day: another gimmick.
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