Yes, noisy bins

In my previous post, I asked a stupid question and suggested some very stupid answers. Having researched it, two of my stupid answers were correct, but the real truth is far more ridiculous than anything I could have made up. So, why does my wheelie bin have an ’89dB’ sticker on it?

It all comes down to Directive 2000/14/EC, which is a gift to the ‘citizens’ of the European Community, from the European Community. Not strictly a gift, since we have clearly paid through the nose for it, but you should never look a gift horse in the mouth.

Directive 2004/14/EC is all about making sure the aforementioned citizens are able to know how noisy their ‘outdoor equipment’ is, and in some cases restricting how noisy it is allowed to be. This is obviously not a bad idea – for example, when purchasing a lawnmower, it’s handy to know in advance if it will cause permanent hearing damage. However, one item that some euro-clown decided to include in this list of outdoor equipment is the “mobile waste container”.

A “mobile waste container” is defined in Annex 1 of the Directive as “an appropriate designed container fitted with wheels intended to store waste temporarily, and which is equipped with a cover.” Ignoring the confusion over whether we’re talking about storing the waste in the wheels, this clearly includes wheelie bins.

I know there are people out there who are fed up with being awoken by noisy wheelie bins. That’s tough, I’m afraid, because “mobile waste containers” do not fall under Article 12 of the directive, which would limit the noise they could make. They fall under Article 13, i.e. they can be as loud as you damn well like, so long as they have a label saying so.

But how do you measure the loudness of a wheelie bin? This is where it gets interesting. (Not really – you must be new here if you believed that). I won’t go into the full details here – for that you’ll have to read Annex 2, section 39 of the directive, and I recommend you do, it’s comedy genius. I will give a brief layman’s guide though:

1. Don your white coat and set up six microphones the proscribed manner.
2. Empty your wheelie bin
3. Stand behind the bin, lift the lid until it’s vertical and drop it shut. DO NOT slam it. DO NOT move a muscle until it has closed. Do this 20 times. You may, if you really have to, move a bit in order to reach the lid to open it in between drops.
4. Open the lid right up until it’s horizontal, then drop it against the body of the bin. Do this 20 times as well.
5. Built an ‘artificial test track’ out of steel, following the detailed instructions provided.
6. Pull your wheelie bin along the test track. You only have to do this 6 times – 3 in each direction.
7. Average out your readings.

Now you know how loud your wheelie bin is. It doesn’t matter how loud – just put it on the sticker, and everything is hunky dory.

If you can be bothered, there is another gem lurking in the Directive – bottle banks. I highly recommend it – Annex 2, section 22 gives the testing procedure, but make sure you have your 120 bottles ready.

Finally, just to wrap things up neatly, I asked in my previous post what the L WA (don’t know how to do subscript letters on here) meant. I was also wondering 89dB-what, since decibels are a relative measure. The answer to that was 89db(A), and that’s encoded in the L WA part. True wheelie bin geeks can find more information on that in Article 3 section (d), or indeed by referring to ISO 3744:1995. Oh, and I was nearly right about the pneumatic drill – 90dB(A) is round about what you would expect if you stood a metre away from one, according to one of my books anyway.

I know this is all fascinating stuff, but I will warn you now that I will be returning to the subject of ducks in my next post.