Ryanair (The Caring Airline)

12:51 pm by admin.

 Ryanair The Caring Airline

Last week we had the good fortune to travel with Ryan-air to Bristol. What follows is an account of our experience with a bit about Belfast City Airport as well.
We arrived at the airport in plenty of time to check in so no prob so far. Then to my dismay I discovered that I had a Swiss army knife in my pocket.

I thought I had left it a home, obviously I hadn’t .  So we went to the Ryanair servis desk and asked them if they could keep it and I would collect it on my return, ” We don’t have the facility to do that” the polite lady said.
“OK” I thought I can understand that and on her suggestion I went to the lost property office who had the same answer but did suggest she could give me an envelope so I could post it to myself. Which I did as I thought it was a good idea.

While we were at the Ryan-air desk we showed the polite lady, and she was, we showed her our details which we had on a bit of paper as our printer was broken and she said “Just take it over to the check in it will be OK”.
Over to the check-in we trot,eager to get checked in and up for a cuppa before our flight. There was a young man in front of us who was having a bit of a problem with his baggage. He had brought two very small backpacks, which is contrary to the ‘one piece of hand luggage’ rule so they charged him £20 because of it.
He said he would pay CASH!!!!!!,how outdated. The nice trainee behind the desk told him sorry but they weren’t equipped to handle cash. “It’s all I have” he said, so the nice girl said OK but then charged him, I think it was 3% , making it MORE cash that they weren’t equipped to handle. Well I suppose ‘In for a penny’ lets face it the admin cost of taking cash must be horrendous.

At the same time there was another couple who had made a blunder by bring the wrong photo id and I dont’t know the whole story but they left the desk a cussin’ and a swearin’ ’cause it had just cost them £40.

Oh Oh it was our turn. WE approached the nice girl, who took one look at our details and told us we had to use the manual booking machine. “A machine” I thought, “Oh no”. So we stuck our details and to my surprise if was pretty trouble free. That was unil it came to the bit where it said we had to pay £80.
Linda was at the service desk before I could lift our bags of the floor. The polite lady said to go back the checkin desk it would be ok. We went back and it was ok as we had booked before May 21st. after which time you MUST check in on line or PAY more money.

Well, that was sorted ok so we joined the queue for security and spent the next twenty five mins going up and down the airport in a security snake, conga fashion, before being allowed through.
Coffee calling
No coffee, as the big flashy screen thingy said ‘Go straight to gate 7 for boarding right now Go! Go! no time to loose, hurry, run. We hurried and ran and got to the queue and stood in it for a further 25 mins ffs.

Eventually, we boarded and took our seats, quite comfy actually. The plane was delayed ’cause they had missed their slot but is was only for 10 mins so that was ok.
Up up and away, at last.
“Get me some water please” asked Linda
“Ok luv”
The nice flight attendants came along with the trolly, “One bottle of water and one of those small tubes of Pringles please” I asked “Certainly sir, here you are. That will be £5.20p please.”
 A bottle of Nestle` water, not special water, not water that will cure all ill’s just WATER, that was on sale in the airport for a quid and thats dear, cost £3

Spent a great week-end in Bristol with our family but we had to go home, so off to Bristol Airport.

Ok, so we go to the check-in.
You know whats coming don’t you.
Oh yea, nice girl at the check-in said “£40 please” , “No way I said” , so over to the service desk and the stern lady there said “If you don’t pay £40 you will not be alloed to board”
“But why? I said
“Because according to our records you elected to check in on line” said stern lady
“We didn’t” I said while biting my lip.
I asked to speak to someone else but all she did was call “The Help Line” , some help line all they did was help Ryanair to £40 of our money.

Apparently when we booked although we didn’t tick the box for on line booking, we didn’t tick the the airport box either so it defaults to the more money option. So when we turned up not having booked in on line we had to pay £40.

We paid then went to the desk with our little chitty to prove it. Two girls were in front of us and their case was 1kg overweight and the girl at the desk wanted £15 . So one of the girls took out a few pairs of sandals and a pair of hair thingys and the case was ok then, so no charge.
The same weight got on the plane it’s just that some of it was in her handbag.

We were next, but as we weree about the show the girl our chitty another guy came over a showed his chitty. Any way we got through and as we were walking by the service desk we nothice there 4/5 people waiting for their chittys. I wonder what they had done.

I think I will open a business printing chittys for Ryanair, could be a right little earner.

HAPPY FLYING

Posted in Belfast, Grumps | No Comments »

Recycle, where does it go?

12:22 pm by admin.

I have always wondered just what happens to our waste that we’re always told to recycle goes. So I decided the best person to ask is the one who is in charge of the day-to-day operation of the Recycling for Castlereagh District  Council. Sarah Turley.  Now I know and if you read this so will you.

Q.”Hi Sarah how are you keeping? “

A. “Fine thanks Ivan.”

Q.” Can you tell me what your position is with Castlereagh Council? “

A. “I am the Council’s Recycling & Environment Officer. “

Q . “Most people just chuck their waste into the appropriate bin blue, brown and black but can you tell me what they are for? “

A. “Householders in Castlereagh have a black, blue  & brown bin or a black, brown and kerbie box system for recycling depending on where they live.

The black bin is for general rubbish- materials that we cannot currently recycle, such as nappies and plastic packaging.

For recycling householders will have either a blue bin or kerbie box. These are for mixed-dry recyclables (MDR’s) such as paper, cardboard, food and drinks cans and plastic bottles.

The kerbie box system also accepts glass, aluminum foil, textiles and hand tools.

The brown bin is for ‘compostable’ materials such as garden waste, this includes, grass cuttings, twigs & branches, hedge cuttings, plants & shrubs.

Over the next few weeks the Council will be introducing food waste into the brown bin. This will include the collection of both cooked and uncooked food such as meat & bones, dairy, bread, fish, fruit & vegetables & tea & coffee grounds.

“ Q. “When the lorry comes to collect our wheelie bin what happens to the various colours, I mean how are they sorted out? “

A. ” The general rubbish the Council collects in the black bin is sent to landfill. Recyclables collected in the blue bin are transported to a sorting facility (Material Recovery Facility – MRF) at Bryson Recycling in Mallusk.  Here they undergo both manual and mechanical sorting before being baled for onward transportation to reprocessors.

The materials collected in the kerbie box are sorted at kerbside before being taken to Bryson Recycling at Mallusk, where they are baled for onward transportation to reprocesors.

The brown bin materials are collected in Council Refuse Collection Vehicles (RCVs) and taken to a local composting facility. At present all garden waste is composted using windrows.

When food waste collections begin in December 2009 the brown bin waste will be composted by in-vessel composting. ”

Q. ” Is this handled by a private contractor or do the Council Handle it? “

A. “At present the Council collect the black, blue and brown bins from households.  Bryson Recycling is contracted by the Council to provide a kerbside collection service (kerbie box) to around 16,500 households.

Landfilled waste is taken to two private landfill sites – one at Mullaghglass, the other at Cottonmount.

Blue bin and kerbie box materials are taken to Bryson Recycling’s MRFat Mallusk.

Brown bin waste is taken to Natural World Products composting facility at Glenside, Belfast. ”

*Landfill, blue bin, brown bin and kerbie box contracts are awarded under contract.

Q “We all know that the garden waste goes for composting but what about the blue bin, it must be a hard job sorting out all the different materials? ”

A. “ With very specialised machinery the sorting process is much more efficient. Materials are sorted both by hand and machinery.

When blue bin materials are taken to the MRF, they are emptied into a warehouse. From here they are gradually fed on to a conveyor belt. The materials are then hand sorted and any contaminants contained in the load are removed such as plastic bags. Large pieces of cardboard are also removed at this stage.

The materials pass through various screens to separate 3 dimensional materials such as tins and plastic bottles from paper and card. The paper then passes through another hand sorting station where it is graded into high-grade news and pamphlets and lower grade mixed paper.

The aluminum cans and plastic bottles are separated using ‘an eddy current’; the current repels aluminium and attracts plastic bottles.

The end result of this sorting process is the collection of separate recycling materials: Paper, cardboard, plastic bottles & steel & aluminium cans. These are then passed through a bailer and stored ready for transportation to various recycling facilities.

The kerb side material is pre-sorted at site and therefore only needs to be placed on a conveyor and baled.

Q. ” I use the recycling centre a lot but where does all the stuff go after there? “

A. ” The Recycling centres at both Cregagh Road and Comber Road, Carryduff collect a large range of materials for recycling. These include:

Paper, cardboard, textiles, glass bottles, mobile phones, spectacles, batteries, aerosols, garden waste, paint, Waste Electronic Electric Equipment (WEEE), scrap metal, waxed coated cartons and the list goes on….

These items are sent on for recycling to various companies such as:

Aerosols are collected by ENVA- Northern Ireland, for metal recycling

Textiles are sent to the Salvation Army and Cookstown Textile recycling for textile recycling.

Glass and waxed coated cartons are collected by Glassdon Northern Ireland for recycling. “

Q ” What happens to the oil and batteries, they must be especially difficult? ”

A. ” Vegetable oils are collected by Agri- Energy and used to make bio-diesel.  Mineral oils are collected by ENVA and re-used. Both vehicle batteries and post consumer batteries are collected by ENVA, NI, where the plastics and metals are separated and recycled. “

Q ” Are there any plans to use any of the waste for power generation like come other cities in the UK mainland? ”

A. “Yes, the option of Energy from Waste (EfW) is included in the Council’s Waste Management Plan and also forms part of the Northern Ireland Waste Management Strategy. Please see http://www.arc21.org.uk/opencontent/?itemid=27&section=Residual+Waste+Project for more in-depth information on Energy from Waste. “

Q. ” What would you say to people who don’t think recycling is worth it? “

A ” Recycling is a ‘new’ behaviour for most people. It is sometimes difficult to encourage people to recycle but we are getting there. The recycling rate in Castlereagh Borough Council has been increasing steadily from 5% in 2002/3, to 38% in 2008/9 – with in-year quarterly highs of over 41%.

We try and work from the bottom up and teach children about recycling so ‘pester power’ can sometimes help to persuade parents to recycle.

But with regards to it being worth it, I would say absolutely.

Recycling not only diverts waste from landfill, reducing environmental damage caused by leachate and methane gas (produced by rotting waste), but also reduces the negative visual impact that landfills can have on the countryside.

It also provides jobs for the local market and produces revenue.

Recycling also saves energy for example: The energy saved in Recycling one can, produces enough energy to power your TV for 3 hours, it seems a waste to throw it into a landfill where it takes decades to degrade and is virtually useless.

Reduce, reuse, recycle is the message the Council tries to promote to schools and householders. Our waste is our responsibility.

We are moving away from landfill and therefore have to make use of our ‘waste’. We need to start thinking of our waste as a resource and therefore deal with it more effectively & efficiently.

Thank you Sarah, hopefully this will encourage more people to Recycle now that they can see it dosen’t just go to landfill.

Posted in Northern Ireland, Belfast, Environmental | No Comments »

A Day Out In Holywood

12:19 am by admin.

Day out

Posted on May 4, 2009 by Ivan

 Off to Holywood today for the May Day Fair. The town gets closed and they have jousting, stalls.fancy dress and a large maypole in the middle of it. Will let you know what the craic was when I get back.

Got a bit side tracked with my SOF stuff so will just write this up now .

Every Mayday week-end Holywood is host to a big celebration of the Maypole traditions. There is lots of activity and plenty of things for folk to see and do. When we arrived (a bit late in the day unfortunatly) things were well on the way. People were queing up at the many stalls, all for charity.
There was lots on offer from bric-a-brac to homemade preserves, food to fancy goods and all going to various good causes. Of course there was the usual burger stalls and ice cream vans all put on this earth to torment parents of little children.

At one end of the town they had erected a climbing tower and anyone could have a go. Of course all the proper safety precautions were taken but even so it seemed that it was just the younger generation who dared brave the hights.

As we walked round we saw lots of people dressed in medeival costume. There were jugglers, rat catchers, knights and damsels. A court jester tried to teach passers by how to juggle with varying degrees of sucess. (This was one of the better ones.

At the other end of the town we came upon a bit of a fight. Obviously two guys had a disagreement over who could woo the local beuty so they decided to sort it out in the only way that real men should. In a big fight!!!.

Last year they had Knights on horseback, jousting, but alas and alack not this year, or if they did we missed it.

In another part of Holywood the was the Radio Ulster road show with Hugo Duncan, not our cup of tea.

BUT his guest was. I was May McFettridge in all her glory. She/he had the crowd in fits, even though it was raining, spirits were not dampened. As usual she picked out members of the audience for ridicule and derision. Two women in particular were the target of her tounge. “Are you’s two sisters”?, she asked. “No” ,was the reply. “Oh”, she said, “I thought you were waiting for Cinderella”.

All in all it was a good day and we were glad we went
I’ll finish with a piccy of our May because I didn’t get one of the Maypole dancers ’cause we were too late so you’ll have to make do with May on Mayday.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Posted in Northern Ireland | No Comments »