Domestic recycling: Local council and Amazon

[mtbc]

The imminence of Christmas is associated with a high rate of use of our recycling bins. We have two now: I asked the council for another and a second 240ℓ bin appeared fairly promptly. Curiously, our new bin's lid's underside is marked L_wA 92dB. I doubt that the bin doubles as a capsule from within which I may experience moderately loud rock concerts without risking hearing loss but I have no highly plausible rival explanation for why the bin lid informs me of a sound intensity. Given the holiday period, the council scheduled our next two waste collections for Sundays: tomorrow and next week. I had not realized that they ever do Sunday collections.

In contrast to our council's helpful efficiency, Amazon's customer service failed rather; I figure that being a high-volume low-margin retail operation they are typically bad at off-script queries. When I asked about the strange papery tape, with its thin diagonal strands within, that they use on their boxes I just got the usual slab of boilerplate in response. Their tape's difficult to remove but I do not want to contaminate the recycling stream and I do not see that Amazon's website provides helpful information about the tape.

Comments

[crazyscot]

I gather it's the amount of noise the bin can make in normal use when you wheel it around or drop the lid. Something to do with minimising disruption to the neighbours.

[mtbc]

Aha, that makes such sense, thank you. Drawing from the Engineering ToolBox, Wikipedia suggets that L_wA = 90dB for a large diesel vehicle so I guess that the bin may be as loud as a couple of them. With your clue and some more searching online, it does look to be about the sound of dropping the lid in a manner (including being in a very quiet environment) specified by the EU.