First Minister Humza Yousaf is facing millions of pounds of compensation claims by shops that have installed recycling points for his botched deposit return scheme after the UK Government ruled glass bottles cannot be included.
The Scottish Grocers’ Federation (SGF) said its members would require compensation from the SNP-Green administration at Holyrood after they installed “expensive” reverse vending machines to handle glass returns by customers.
Dr Pete Cheema, the trade body’s chief executive, lambasted the Scottish Government for forcing retailers to install the machines without ministers first obtaining a required exemption from the UK Internal Market Act (IMA).
Great, innit?
We’re getting to the point where we do have to wonder whether the SNP would be able to successfully masturbate.
we do have to wonder whether the SNP would be able to successfully masturbate.
I’m sure they need a drag queen and a primary school to pull it off.
I don’t understand how they can get this wrong. A lot of the rest of Europe manages this and has recycling vending machines at supermarkets.
They insisted on machines that can handle glass bottles. UK law prohibits such. Scottish politicians failed to apply for an exemption from the UK law.
“They insisted on machines that can handle glass bottles. UK law prohibits such”
Well thats a f*cking stupid law then isn’t it? Why shouldn’t Scotland have glass bottle recycling machines in shops if they want to?
Because, Jim, that would mean items would need to be labeled differently for Scotland than the rest of the UK. Thus, it falls foul of the single market regs.
On a practical level, it was always a daft idea because glass is already recycled, whereas the SNPs scheme would mean that it could only be used for roads not new bottles. Thus, it was less beneficial as regards carbon than the current arrangements. As carbon reduction was their stated aim, that was a bit silly. They were told this, ad infinitum, but Slater ran around singing “la la la I’m not listening”
Why bother to be competent? To become an SMP you merely have to hurl racist (their definition, not mine) abuse at the English for a few months, get elected and then wander around for a few years, collect your golden goodbye when your incompetence finally gets you kicked out, then retire on your index linked final salary scheme for the rest of your life.
Of course if you attain the dizzy hights of becoming an MP, then it has the potential to be even more lucrative. Certainly, it’s a dammed nuisance having to troop down to Westminster, but the lunch in the House of Lords is not bad and the wine list is amazing. As it should be as there are 33 million people having a whip round for it. The £342 per day, although chicken feed, will buy a decent meal over the weekend…
@Jim Single UK market is why. SNP policies were over-reach of powers and they knew it. Well at least one or two of the SNP knew it – the rest are seriously intellectually challenged, well beyond your normal level of incompetence.
Grist – To become an SMP you merely have to hurl racist (their definition, not mine) abuse at the English for a few months
No, no, no.
It’s not the 90’s, my chum. All the racism in Scottish politics is now aimed at what Humza calls “white people”. The Scottish Government is keen to extirpate the Scots from Scotland.
‘to pull it off’
Ouch Steve. That sounds bloody painful.
It’s quite striking that a perfectly reasonable anti-London sentiment has been converted into a racist anti-English one. (Among the real Scots, I mean; it’s no surprise among the Irish families.)
This point, which I’ve known for years, has now penetrated the skull of G. Brown. It’s odd: Brown was an able chap when I knew him long ago – how on earth could it take so long for the penny to drop for him?
” how on earth could it take so long for the penny to drop for him?”
It had a lot of thick stuff to fall through.
Well that final line got a LOL. Especially since I always considered the SNP as a bunch of, ahem, Onanists.
@Dearieme
“(Among the real Scots, I mean; it’s no surprise among the Irish families.)”
I think you may find the Scoti originally came from Ireland
And they are not very good at it. The one in my local Sainsbury keeps rejecting glass.
Which is the reason for recent whinging by the SNP about Scotland demanding a separate immigration policy from the rUK. Truth is that “Scotland” and “the Scots” demand no such thing, it’s just that the SNP things we should be flooded with diversity to counteract the prevailing white privilege.
I’ll say this for Humza Useless. He doesn’t hide his light under a bushel.
Humza Yousaf Racist Rant about white people in Scotland (YouTube)
Why do they need machines? When I worralad, you just handed your jam jar to the shop keeper and he put it in a box somewhere.
Best I can make out here in Germany is that most cans and plastic bottles carry a €0.25 Pfand and any machine will take them. Individual glass bottles don’t carry a Pfand, these go to the many bottle banks scattered around.
Crates of bottled beer and bottled water carry a Pfand and the machines accept these.
If the Germans don’t think it worth having a Pfand on individual glass bottles it’s probably not worth doing.
And to get round scamming the machines read the bar codes so presumably know which carried a Pfand in the first place. We’re going along the Czech border to Passau next so I assume the machines protect against someone bringing stuff over and claiming loads of Pfands that weren’t paid.
To that end, everything carries a bar code so I don’t see how it would interfere with the single market if bottles were included.
“Because, Jim, that would mean items would need to be labeled differently for Scotland than the rest of the UK. Thus, it falls foul of the single market regs.”
Well we shouldn’t have single market regulations. We aren’t the EU. We should let people decide what they want to do in their area. And if that is something stupid then they should have to suffer the consequences of that. In this case it might mean that the Scots stop being able to buy stuff in glass bottles because manufacturers outside Scotland stop sending their products there. They lose out. Their choice. Why should we protect the Scots from their own folly?
@ Jim
It would mean various spivs transporting crates of empty beer bottles from England to Scotland and feeding them into Scottish machines to claim refunds of deposits that hasd never been paid.
John,
So what? That’s their problem to solve. As I said, the Germans have obviously solved the problem in their border areas.
Oh, I don’t know. If it frustrates the tyranny of the “Scottish Government” (really just an uppity unified council), then I’m all for it. Especially since it makes the shit SNP look shitter.
@ Jim
You may be teetotal like the new First Minister, but the rest of us have noticed that whisky, as well as beer, comes in glass bottles
@Jim
Well we shouldn’t have single market regulations. We aren’t the EU
Sorry if this feels like a pile on, it isnt intended to be. The UK is a single country, Scotland is not a country with its own borders – neither is England for that matter. It is for the benefit of all UK citizens that we have a single market, it makes stuff cheaper.
Allowing a glorified local council to set its own laws can only lead to multiples levels of varying shite as opposed to a single national level of shite.
As I have mentioned before, you can fuck the machines up in Clogland by putting Amstel bottles in an Ottinger crate.
Back in the day, I used to help Bob the milkman with his’round’. Drop off a couple of pints of gold top, pick up the empties and bung them in a crate on the back of his milk float.
Somehow, in a fashion only known to the ancients and lost in the mists of time over the following
50+ yearseons, they were taken back to the dairy and cleaned, sterilised, ready to be filled with milk again.Ditto all the Brown Ale, Lemonade, tonic water bottles we used to
nickliberate from the back of the off licence / pub.@ Adolff
Technological innovation in the glass industry – single-use bottles cheaper to make than the cost of collecting, washing and sterilising multi-use bottles (followed by even cheaper plastic/fibre cartons for milk).
Scavenging, sorting and recycling is horrendously labour-intensive and when wages rise above near-starvation levels it costs more than it is worth except for high-/ultra-high-value items. Pawnbrokers still recycle second-had gold and jewellery but I haven’t seen a scrap merchant in a cart in fifty years.
“It would mean various spivs transporting crates of empty beer bottles from England to Scotland and feeding them into Scottish machines to claim refunds of deposits that hasd never been paid.”
As I said, why are we rescuing them from their own folly? If they want to do it, let them. The only people to lose out will be the Scots, who may then stop voting for idiots like the SNP. If the ‘adults’ in Westminster keep protecting the Scottish voters from their own stupid choices, guess what we get more of?
“Allowing a glorified local council to set its own laws can only lead to multiples levels of varying shite as opposed to a single national level of shite.”
At least you can go and shout at the local councillors when they behave like arses, as they live locally and everyone knows where. And you never know, some councils might make good decisions……stranger things have happened.
“You may be teetotal like the new First Minister, but the rest of us have noticed that whisky, as well as beer, comes in glass bottles”
So? No one is banning them, just wanting to recycle them. Why would Scottish distillers stop exporting whisky just because Scottish shops have to have a recycling machine?
Maybe that’s the reason the fake “Scottish Parliament” is housed in a massive concrete building with the features of a bunker than anything else.
You build for the environment you expect and clearly the “Scottish Government” expects the plebs to be storming the walls at some point.
When I did an assignment at Consol Glass I learned that recycling glass is much more expensive than starting from scratch. As Ghost above says, it’s a pointless gesture, like the holy water font at the entrance to a church.
John77 @ 3.29. Last week I removed a radiator and old gas boiler (an Ideal Concord which weighed about three tons according to my back) and put them in the front garden. They were gone within 40 minutes.
A couple of blokes driving around in a transit van ringing a bell on the hunt for scrap.
The ‘Look at Life’ series of movie shorts has this great episode from the early sixties. No health and safety in sight…..https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O1jiG7E89KE&t=3s
Addolff. Here at Fahrenheit Towers in the Marches we have a scrap metal collector come around every week. He doesn’t get much off of me because I as I believe it’s always sensible to not throw useful looking bits of metal away (however my wife disagrees with this policy). Copper and other valuables I keep to sell myself or potentially make use of in various garden and household projects.
If I really really need to get rid of something that’s metal and I don’t want then I’ll put it outside the front of the house with other Pikeydegradable stuff and lo and behold it disappears.
@ Adolff
I am encouraged to hear that they still exist, even though not in my high earned-income locality.
I suppose that the income differential to switch between low-paid jobs is significantly less than that needed to switch from unemployment benefit to a low-paid job.
This is all properly explained in the History book, which is a Good Thing: