My Ghast Is Flabbered
Those of you who read my blog regularly will be aware that I am not usually at a loss for words. Well, there’s a first time for everything. According to the Guardian - and presuming the story is true 
, Croydon Council is fitting peoples’ wheelie bins with microchips. George Orwell must be spinning in his grave. Big Brother had nothing on this. According to these guys:
the microchips being inserted into their new wheelie bins may well be adapted so that the council can judge whether they are producing too much rubbish.
WHAT????
It gets worse, if you fall foul of the men from the town hall…
…if the technology suggests that they are, errant residents may be visited by officials bearing advice on how they might “manage their rubbish more effectively”.
And presumably a trip to room 101 will be in order for some quick reprogramming into a responsible well behaved citizen is in order. Ye Gods!
The Conservative representative for the area at the London assembly stated:
“The Stasi or the KGB could never have dreamed of getting a spying device in every household.”
Indeed.
Actually, considering I’m speechless, I didn’t do too badly. 
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Comment by A visitor
# February 16, 2005,
If they install them in this area we will all be nicked as the council has just cut it’s collections from every week to every two weeks.John
Comment by Spike
# February 21, 2005,
I’m not saying they are right about putting microchips into wheelie bins, but I can understand the need to keep an eye on the amount of rubbish people have. We should be encouraging recycling. If you do it right we barely have anything in your wheelie bin.
In our house hold, we recyle paper, glass, clothes, tins, and currently looking for somewhere to throw plastic away. We also have a composs heep. As a result when it comes to our weekly bin day, for the entire house hold we can just about fill one bin bad.
There are two sides to every story unfortunatly they only tend to be reported from one side.
[Longrider replies] I agree about recycling. However, chips in bins (if that indeed is going to happen) is a step too far. Encouragement and education is the way forward, not spying on people. Any chips in my bins will find their way into the microwave (or any other suitable means of disabling them).