You've "bin" bugged!!

[mc_squared]

Germans plant bugs in our wheelie bins

 

 

It looks just like any other wheelie bin, but unknown to the householder a bugging device has been inserted under the lip of its lid (bottom left). The bug itself is only a little bigger than a 1p piece (bottom right)

 

 

 

Electronic spy 'bugs' have been secretly planted in hundreds of thousands of household wheelie bins.

The gadgets - mostly installed by companies based in Germany - transmit information about the contents of the bins to a central database which then keeps records on the waste disposal habits of each individual address.

Already some 500,000 bins in council districts across England have been fitted with the bugs - with nearly all areas expected to follow suit within the next couple of years.

Until now, the majority of bins have been altered without the knowledge of their owners. In many cases, councils which ordered the installation of the devices did not even debate the proposals publicly.

The official reason for the bugs is to 'improve efficiency' and settle disputes between neighbours over wheelie-bin ownership. But experts say the technology is actually intended to enable councils to impose fines on householders who exceed limits on the amount of non-recyclable waste they put out. New powers for councils to do this are expected to be introduced by the Government shortly.

But the revelation that the bins have already been altered ignited a 'Bin Brother' row over privacy and taxes. Conservative MP Andrew Pelling said burglars could hack into the computer system to see if sudden reductions in waste at individual households meant the owners were on holiday and the property empty.

He said: 'This is nothing more than a spy in the bin and I don't think even the old Soviet Union made such an intrusion into people's personal lives.

'It is Big Brother gone mad. I think a more British way of doing things is to seek to persuade people rather than spy on them.'

With the bugging technology, the electronic chips are carefully hidden under the moulded front 'lip' of wheelie bins used by householders for non-recyclable waste. As the bin is raised by the mechanical hoister at the back of the truck, the chip passes across an antenna fitted to the lifting mechanism. That enables the antenna to 'read' a serial number assigned to each property in the street.

A computer inside the truck weighs the bin as it is raised, subtracts the weight of the bin itself and records the weight of the contents on an electronic data card.

When the truck returns to the depot, all the information collected on the round is transmitted to a hand-held device and downloaded on to the council's centralised computer. Each household can be billed for the amount of waste collected - even though they have already paid for the services through their council tax.

Although the chip itself is worth only about £2, fitting the equipment to a dustcart costs around £15,000.

Town hall chiefs say the monitoring system will improve recycling rates by allowing them to identify areas which are not doing enough.

But critics believe the ultimate aim is to charge 'offenders' according to how much unrecyclable rubbish they leave outside for collection. Councils expect the Government to introduce laws soon to enable them to set limits on how much rubbish households put out, and fine those who exceed them.

Although there is no official timetable, Environment Minister Ben Bradshaw indicated the Government's approach this month when he admitted he was examining proposals for an extra tax on non-recyclable waste. Accusing those who fail to recycle household rubbish of behaving 'antisocially and irresponsibly', he said it was 'time to make the polluter pay'.

German firms spearhead initiative

Two German firms are in the forefront of companies cashing in on selling and fitting the wheelie-bin sensors: Hamburg-based Sulo operates in Crewe, Nantwich, Peterborough, South Norfolk and Woking, while rival Deister Electronic, whose headquarters are near Hanover, has been hired to tag bins in the Devizes area of Wiltshire.

The firms already operate similar systems across Europe.

The British Government's Landfill Allowance Trading Scheme, which came into effect on April 1, 2005, imposes a penalty of £150 a tonne on local authorities that dump too much waste in landfill sites.

Ministers say they must act in order to comply with the EC Landfill Directive, which sets targets for reducing municipal waste in EU member countries.

Deister manager Thomas Menzel said: 'A crucial element is the ability to identify specific bins and record when they are emptied. That information can be applied in many different ways.' Helmut Siegler, of German company C-trace, which is hoping to win UK contracts, said: 'What the councils do with the chips or transponders is their affair. They may decide to weigh the rubbish collected as businesses often do, or simply charge per collection.'

None of the German operators was willing to discuss its British operations in detail for fear of jeopardising potential contracts.

Details of the bugs emerged in Devizes only when a council official let slip about the secret implants during a recent Rotary Club dinner - more than a month after the new bins were introduced.

British firms were more open about their involvement in what promises to be a lucrative market.

Steve Foster, sales director of Bradford-based PM OnBoard, which fits weighing equipment to trucks and operates in Belfast and the Northumberland town of Alnwick, said his company already had a full database of names and addresses and was ready to start charging as soon as the law allowed it.

'The way to get people to recycle more is to measure what they collect and make them pay accordingly,' he said. 'People should be rewarded for putting out less waste and penalised for putting out too much.

'The technology doesn't enable us to differentiate between types of rubbish but we can measure the amount of waste in the bin. If a council were to ring and say "How about next Tuesday", we have the equipment in place to start right away.'

'Vital' to encourage recycling

Councils across Britain said it was vital to encourage more recycling. Ken Barnes, corporate director at South Norfolk Council, said: 'In order to change the hearts and minds of residents, we first needed to understand their recycling habits.

'The bins have been introduced to protect both our environment and our taxpayers. This has not been designed to embarrass people. We do not publish individual results, but we will use them to help us help those householders who would probably be able to recycle more.'

A spokesman for Crewe and Nantwich Council said: 'We can detect recycling participation rates. So if a particular street or district is doing particularly badly, we will go and have a chat with them.' Woking Council said: 'All the bins have been chipped but we are not using the technology yet because we have not got the vehicle and identification system which weighs them.'

Martin Smith, head of Environmental Services at Kennet District Council, which covers Devizes, admitted that residents had not been told their bins were electronically tagged. Nor is there any reference in documents about the council's waste-recycling strategy. There is nothing sinister about this,' he said. 'These are simply chips that will enable us to sort out disputes between householders about whose wheelie bin is whose. If there are any arguments we can just send out an officer to scan the chip and settle the argument.

'There is a debate in Government over the possibility of introducing charges but that's not what we had in mind when we ordered the chips.'

The Tories have already condemned the proposed charge as another New Labour tax-raising measure. And they warn that people will simply start dumping bags in their neighbours' gardens or at the end of the street to avoid paying.

Wiltshire farmer Tom Seaman urged residents to protest by unscrewing the bugs and sending them back to the council. Mr Seaman, who dumped a digger bucket-ful of uncollected bin bags on the town hall steps during last month's heatwave, said: 'This is a disgraceful backdoor policy. Monitoring devices have been secretly installed without a word of consultation or information. People should not damage council property but send these things back to their rightful owners and demand an explanation.'

Kennet Council chairman Gerry Knunkler said neither he nor council tax payers had been told about the true purpose of the bugs. 'I was assured these things were simply to ensure bins could be returned to the right addresses if they got mixed up or drunks rolled them off,' he said.

Kay Twitchen, of the Local Government Association, said: 'This technology would certainly help councils to levy charges on individual householders.'

Anyone who removed a bug and threw it away might not get their bins emptied, warned Paul Bettison, the Association's environment chief.

Mr Bettison, an advocate of charging, said: 'Removing one of these devices would not break any law as far as I know. But if in the future a local authority decided to charge for taking away rubbish, it would be within its rights to say to that person, �&If you don't want to pay, we don't want to provide you with a service.�8'

But he admitted that at the moment no action could be taken against protesters.

[Matter-Eater Lad]

Yeah and america is becoming a police state:rolleyes:

 

This is weird and funny, bugging trashcans.

[mc_squared]

Yeah and america is becoming a police state:rolleyes:

 

This is weird and funny, bugging trashcans.

 

So it doesn't bother you??:rolleyes:

[Matter-Eater Lad]

So it doesn't bother you??:rolleyes:

 

 

Hahah i dont give a damn.

 

not to mention it seems every european is complaining about america's goverment without looking at their own:laugh3:

[Kapone]

This is tracking wheelie bins for efficiency, not prying into private phone calls. Theres a huge difference.

[mc_squared]

This is tracking wheelie bins for efficiency' date=' not prying into private phone calls. Theres a huge difference.[/quote']

 

You can never be sure!;)

[Matter-Eater Lad]

This is tracking wheelie bins for efficiency' date=' not prying into private phone calls. Theres a huge difference.[/quote']

 

But do you guys really think your goverments dont listen in on calls in your country? is anyone that ignorant? most nations do what america did or similar....hell even clinton did wire taps just like bush did....anyone who thinks their goverment does not do this is naive.

[General Smut]

No I dont think so. I dont think they've got the manpower to do that. They should concentrate on crooks on Joe Public.

[Matter-Eater Lad]

No I dont think so. I dont think they've got the manpower to do that. They should concentrate on crooks on Joe Public.

 

They dont have the manpower to spy and moniter their own citizens?

[mc_squared]

No I dont think so. I dont think they've got the manpower to do that. They should concentrate on crooks on Joe Public.

 

And instead of concentrating on bins they should be focussing on locating bin Laden!!;)

[manc_ill_kid]

Have you any idea how much hassle it is and how much resources it consumes to monitor people's phonecalls? C'mon, lets get back into reality for a moment.

minimum wage here is around £5 an hour, which equates to, I guess, about £9000 a year minimum, if its experienced inteligience personell we can triple that £27,000 and additional office overheads lets add another £10,000.

 

So one person working in the top secret phone call monitoring base costs the tax payer between £20,000 to £40,000. And this person is listening in on my phonecalls to my mother (boring as hell) my friends (interesting if you like webcasts).

 

Now lets for a moment postulate on how many terrorists there are in the UK, I reckon there's ten thousand, being optimistic, so out of a population of 60 million. Thats about 0.0016% of the population. In order to find one terrorist, they'd need to track 6000 people at random.

 

This is still hyperthetical. But I doubt your one person in the phonecall monitoring base could really listen in on 6000 people at once. I reckon given the number of people that one person can really differentiate, that one phonecall monitorer can track 100. So it would take 60 people who's full time job was to listen in on phonecalls, of which only one of them is going to come up with anything like a terrorist.

 

Now this is going to be a hellishly boring job so there'll be a high staff turnover, and every member of staff at our listening station is going to have to be security vetted, which takes time and money.

 

How the hell can these people justify their budget?

 

And how can I get away with admitting in a public forum that I have data on bomb making equipment like I did in another thread, and have actively participated in making explosives. And these secret phone tap listning people haven't arrested me.

 

In fact, if I were a terrorist, I would so not even use my telephone for anything other than talkingt o my mum, its too obvious. Therefore these phonelistening people we discussed earlier, they're not even going to find me.

[mc_squared]

Have you any idea how much hassle it is and how much resources it consumes to monitor people's phonecalls? C'mon, lets get back into reality for a moment.

minimum wage here is around £5 an hour, which equates to, I guess, about £9000 a year minimum, if its experienced inteligience personell we can triple that £27,000 and additional office overheads lets add another £10,000.

 

So one person working in the top secret phone call monitoring base costs the tax payer between £20,000 to £40,000. And this person is listening in on my phonecalls to my mother (boring as hell) my friends (interesting if you like webcasts).

 

Now lets for a moment postulate on how many terrorists there are in the UK, I reckon there's ten thousand, being optimistic, so out of a population of 60 million. Thats about 0.0016% of the population. In order to find one terrorist, they'd need to track 6000 people at random.

 

This is still hyperthetical. But I doubt your one person in the phonecall monitoring base could really listen in on 6000 people at once. I reckon given the number of people that one person can really differentiate, that one phonecall monitorer can track 100. So it would take 60 people who's full time job was to listen in on phonecalls, of which only one of them is going to come up with anything like a terrorist.

 

Now this is going to be a hellishly boring job so there'll be a high staff turnover, and every member of staff at our listening station is going to have to be security vetted, which takes time and money.

 

How the hell can these people justify their budget?

 

And how can I get away with admitting in a public forum that I have data on bomb making equipment like I did in another thread, and have actively participated in making explosives. And these secret phone tap listning people haven't arrested me.

 

In fact, if I were a terrorist, I would so not even use my telephone for anything other than talkingt o my mum, its too obvious. Therefore these phonelistening people we discussed earlier, they're not even going to find me.

 

Maybe you've already been investigated, and you just don't realise it!;)

[manc_ill_kid]

Well if they've identified me as not a threat, they're so wrong

[Black Rose]

If they start charging people by weight of the stuff you bin, flytipping will increase.

[Jenjie]

its all very well deciding to implement this technology, and I'm all for fining people who don't recycle properly. BUTthe councils need to get their recycling processes sorted out properly and enable people to do so without making it severely complicated & difficult.

 

You need a degree in planning & council nonsense to be able to recycle in our area.

The easy bit: We have 4 wheelie bins. Black for non-recyclable, green for garden, brown for glass & blue for paper. The black bin is emptied once a week on the same day every week.

The difficult bit: The green, blue & brown bins are emptied at random points throughout the month. Never the same day, no pattern to it, and not necessarily the same number of times in the month. And they issued a calendar for each bin at the beginning of the month, which now all need recycling because they just changed the dates and issued new ones.

 

My Grandma lives about 10/15 mins drive away. She has a different council, so her recycling consists of a black bin for non-recyclable, a green bin for garden, a huge black plastic box for cans & bottles, and a green bag for paper. They have a more logical collection system which is black bin gets collected once a week on the same day every week, and the rest gets collected on the same day but every fortnight. Cool! Except that they expect elderly people to lug a heavy plastic box, a heavy plastic bag, and 2 wheelie bins to the end of their property for collection (obviously not at the same time). I find it difficult moving Grandma's paper bag because 2 weeks worth of newspapers, plus any other paper is very heavy. She has to drag it along the floor down her driveway if there's no-one around to help her.

[Black Rose]

We have 1 big black bin for household rubbish which is collected every other-week.

2 Big brown bins for recycling (paper, card, tins, some plastics) which is collected on every other-week (so Black-Brown-black-brown).

 

At least those bins have wheels.

 

We also have a box for glass bottles which we have to take to the nearest glass recycling site, and also a bin for green waste, which we take to the dump and another bin for water.

[busybeeburns]

500,000 wheelie bins 'have a spy in the lid'

 

Another article:

 

Hundreds of thousands of wheelie bins are being fitted with special microchips to monitor the amount of waste discarded by householders.

 

Councils say they are necessary to gather data about people's rubbish disposal habits and are also a vital tool in settling disputes over bin ownership. But experts are warning that these bugs, which transmit information to a central database, could be used to fine those who exceed limits on the amount of non-recyclable rubbish that they put out.

 

About 500,000 bins across England already carry the electronic devices which are slightly bigger than a one-pence piece and are screwed into a plastic recess in the lip of the wheelie bin. As the bin is lifted up for emptying by council workers, a sensor on the refuse truck scans the chip, which carries a serial number assigned to each property in the street. This then enables the monitoring equipment to identify the bin's address and record the weight of the rubbish that is in the bin. According to The Mail on Sunday newspaper, a computer inside the truck weighs the bin as it is raised up, then subtracts the weight of the bin itself and records the weight of the contents on an electronic data card.

 

Once the truck returns to the depot, all information collected is downloaded onto a central computer. Householders can then be billed for the amount of waste that has been collected from them, even though they have already paid for rubbish collection services through their council tax.

 

The chip itself costs around £2 to make but the cost of fitting the equipment to a council dustcart is around £15,000.

 

http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/this_britain/article1222105.ece

[RICK8]

Oh :lol: this is hilarious...

 

 

 

Are you spreading some kind of Virus Ian?

[busybeeburns]

?

[mc_squared]

?

 

Ditto!!:P

[Black Rose]

All I know is that our bin doesn't have a bug in it.

[mc_squared]

All I know is that our bin doesn't have a bug in it.

 

How can you be so sure??;)

[Space Cadet]

Germans plant bugs in our wheelie bins

 

 

It looks just like any other wheelie bin, but unknown to the householder a bugging device has been inserted under the lip of its lid (bottom left). The bug itself is only a little bigger than a 1p piece (bottom right)

 

So if you know where it is and what it looks like, why not just have the bug "conveniently dissappear" if you're worried? Or are there already anti bug-vandalism laws in place?

[mc_squared]

So if you know where it is and what it looks like' date=' why not just have the bug "conveniently dissappear" if you're worried? Or are there already anti bug-vandalism laws in place?[/quote']

 

Very likely. Probably comes under the new anti-terrorism laws!;)

[Space Cadet]

Anti-terrorism. No doubt. :laugh3:

 

Actually on second thought... with the way governments work, it will likely have to become a problem before they bother to do anything. Guess the first person who tries gets to find out.