Flue
What do you do with an asbestos flue? (The chimney from our central heating boiler.) Our plumber told us to go bury it in the field next to us, and our builder told us to find someone’s skip and dump it. Another plumber told us to smash it into pieces and place it into our wheelie bin and our council told us that they couldn’t help us and to instead contact commercial waste removal firms.

After having done our homework to find firms that actually provided this service, four companies stated that they weren’t interested in our business. When eventually we did find one that was, they could not give us a quote. They instead insisted on us entering into an agreement where they would remove the goods, weigh them and then charge us the appropriate amount. Basically, it felt like they were asking us to give them a blank cheque and trust them.

In the mean time we heard that there was an asbestos dump in Belfast and that all we needed to do was pay a £10 - £20 fee, wrap the thing and bring it down. Unfortunately, but after further enquiries, we heard that this service was strictly only for people with a Belfast address, who could evidence that they resided there…. All other people who live in a different borough are left at the mercy of their own council!

So two weeks have past and we’ve had to go with the people who wanted a blank cheque (obviously not literally). The bill came to a humongous £220!! All of a sudden the not so environmentally friendly option of burying it in a strangers skip seems appealing. This is definitely one of those times when the right thing feels sooo wrong! Now don’t get me wrong, faced with the same set of circumstances, I would do the same thing, but I can sympathise with the punter who takes the easy route. It is time for local government to take seriously all issues of waste management!