Dumped fridge leaves me cold

It is a year since Norfolk residents started paying to leave their DIY waste at the county’s tips.

Although we live in Suffolk, our nearest recycling/waste site is over the border in Norfolk so we visit that. No passport required, by the way.

General “rubbish” can be taken for free but the site charges from £3 per item or 80 litre bag (?) for rubble or timber, £4 per tyre and £5 for flat glass and £9 for plasterboard.

Taken individually, the costs don’t seem too bad. But you will have to have deep pockets if you are having a REAL tidy up at home.

If you want the local council to collect a bulkier item, it charges £32 for up to five items and any additional items are then charged a further £3 each.

All this means that if you have one small fridge the council will charge you £32 to take it away.

Now it may be coincidence but both SWMBO and I have noticed an increase in fly-tipping in our area over the last year. Bags of rubble, cardboard and even the odd fridge dumped in the hedgerows along the minor roads near us.

The bonkers thing about all the fly-tipped material is the fridge. One assumes the owner did not want to pay the £32 it would cost for the council to take it away. One also assumes it was dumped from a car.

Which begs the question – why not drive five or six miles further and dispose of the fridge free of charge at the local “dump”?