In the same week that an academic from the University of Sussex is targeted by a toxic mob of activists, the Brighton & Hove bin strike has again started. The two-week strike across much of the city will be a visual and odorous horror show, likely to elicit a strong sense of disgust from human residents. Animals and pets may enjoy the change, however rotting food and rubbish will soon end up harming them as it did during the previous bin strike.

Coincidently, the strike is happening after the recent Labour Party Conference and will therefore remain only on regional media radar and a secret to most of the country. While the negotiations between bureaucrats and the union continue to take place behind closed doors, the residents are within their right to remain disgusted by these so-called service providers. This brief article will not apportion blame between these two groups because that can be gleaned from existing information, however it is intended to provide practical ideas for the typical resident and potentially for thought leaders. It tends to follow on from the advice of Rhubba's 2nd Jan 2021 video titled Get Real: Think Things Through and more recently, Friend Enemy Distinction Response. Those videos and possibly this article may help highlight when nuance is required to take political ground.

The average local man or woman in the street needs to understand that they are currently being subjected to increasingly concerted efforts to centralise control of their lives:

• For those who have them, cars are thankfully being used by groups of neighbours working together to help take rubbish to the tip. However, it is important to note that the Council is at war with cars, and annual parking permit fees just went up by up to 50%, unless the car is electric. The Council is even fining permit holders after they themselves failed in the timely issue of permits.
• The burning of solid fuel in some parts of the city is banned, but on this occasion, burning cardboard would help mitigate the problem. This ban persists despite the recent collapse of energy retailers and record high energy prices which will cause misery for those near the poverty line. Burning cardboard does not produce sustained heat but it could be used in conjunction with wood.
• Waste is generally managed in large communal bins in the streets. These are poorly managed as individual households are impacted by inconsiderate behaviour of their neighbours in and around the bin. Tidy residents spend time cleaning up after messy neighbours as this is not covered by the waste collection service. Communal bins often fill up on the pavement side leaving half of the bin empty, often resulting in rubbish piling up in the street regardless of strike activity.
• Council managed compost crates are helpful, but are inadequate, especially given the duration and scale of the current strike. Compost can be managed at negligible cost by small groups of individuals. Makeshift worm farms are cheap, effective and simple to make and manage the most annoying component of household rubbish: food waste. Some trendy restaurants in the town even have large compost machines which run a fast cycle.
• When the recent census is published, Brighton is likely to remain the 'most Godless City in the country'. Without going into a debate about religion, it is difficult to identify an institution other than the Church that encourages one to 'love thy neighbour' so explicitly. Instead residents are being actively told to love 'key-workers' and worship the NHS. In this context, governments appear to prefer monogamy. It seems reasonable to assume that localised pop-up support group creators would be unanimously pro-NHS and pro-key worker. What they may not appreciate is how these newly established support groups will contain neighbours who fail their purity test. The same communication channels used to promote their ideas are now vulnerable to opposing ideas in the full view of each group chat.

What should residents do? Residents in the city, even those who are political opponents, should work together with their neighbours in the short term to mitigate the waste issue. By doing this, they will build personal confidence, stronger relationships with each other and reduce conflict that a strike like this will cause. If Jordan Peterson can inspire millions of individuals with 'Tidy your room', the same principle should scale, albeit imperfectly, to 'Tidy your street'. This should lead neutral residents of the city to question the concept of heavily centralised services. Centrist and right leaning residents working together with their collectivist neighbours, will effectively be promoting de-centralisation in a grassroots socialist themed activity.

Conservative and libertarian thought leaders should use embarrassing real-world examples such as this one to highlight failures in over-centralisation for the benefit of everybody. Often emergencies are used to push for greater government power, but they can also be used to provide temporary removal of prohibitive laws. Therefore as a start, the council should temporarily remove bans on solid fuel burning, allow for resident led temporary food compost facilities to be established and run the tips temporarily as a 24/7 service to support residents whilst negotiations take place.