Does anyone want to help make a quick website that could answer this eternal question, and perhaps spread a bit of environmental advice as it goes?
Along the lines of isitChristmas, but obviously localised by Post Code, the site would offer RSS and iCal feeds of whether it’s bin day for you — with reminders the day before, and telling you what week it is for recycling purposes (green or paper/plastic) for those that have differences. Along with this simple, but useful service it could impart environmental advice and info slipped into the RSS as well as somewhere on the site. It could even do calculations of stuff like “my council doesn’t collect X, is it better to just bin or drive it to the recycling centre?”.
It could get a few ads from electricity suppliers etc to pay its way perhaps.
Reading: Is it bin day? – jon bounds http://tinyurl.com/63ntnx
i have to admit i’m tempted…
I like the idea. How do you collect the data? Is it publicly available anywhere?
For Birmingham it is, somewhere buried on their website. Other councils perhaps too — if not a few FOI requests would do the trick I reckon.
E-mailed reminders would also be good for the less techie majority.
I’ve bugged the council by e-mail for garden waste collection so I can see it only reducing their work. They should be glad to toss us a timetable!
I’ll chip in. There’s always time for another handy little website…
Great idea, but I think it needs to be “Is it bin day tomorrow?” otherwise it’ll be too late 😉
Have set up a Google Doc so we can thrash out the idea wiki-style.
http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dd57j7v3_185c46z63g9
Comment or email me if you want access to edit.
Sounds like a cracking idea!
We are just beginning to plan our mini application for our new waste and recycling service which begins in August here at Stratford on Avon District Council.
If you have any thoughts on how you’d like information provided in an RSS feed, let us know by emailing us on webteam@stratford-dc.gov.uk
We’re really keen on using the latest technologies, so feel free to pass any ideas/thoughts to us!
best,
Simon (Web Developer, Stratford on Avon District Council)
Jon, @kasperbs just told me about this post so thought I’d link you up with the bin alerts via Twitter I mentioned at #jeecamp: http://tr.im/kU2D
Hi Philip, cheers – was good to hear more about the Lichfield blog too. I feer we may be far off getting these in Brum.