Mar 16 2007
Rotting rubbish is “safe” - it’s official
The government has concluded that it will be just fine for Councils to go over to fortnightly rubbish collection. It will be an incentive apparently for people to recycle more.
There are several things wrong with this reasoning.
1. It’s counter-intuitive. It cannot be good news during a hot summer in the densely packed settlements of Labour’s urban Britain to have dustbins containing rotting food sitting around unemptied for up to 14 days. The smell will be unpleasant if nothing else.
2.Hot countries usually colllect rubbish more regularly than once a week to avoid smells, rats and other problems.
3. Many of us do not want to see the quality of our rubbish service halved - and we pay for it.
4. Many people have no children at school and are fortunate to have no need of social services. The rubbish service is one of the few things their Council provides that they need - but they all have to pay large bills to the Council. Why penalise them?
5. I cannot see how it will make people recycle more. The recycling service I receive is collected on the same day as the dustbin service, and is already only provided fortnightly. A more frequent recycling service covering more items might encourage more recycling.
RSS Feed
John Redwood has been the Member of Parliament for Wokingham since 1987. First attending Kent College, Canterbury, he graduated from Magdalen College...
This is insanity for a number of reasons.
First, many of us who pay council tax, benefit from just refuse collection and street lighting from the borough council. The vast array of other functions such as social services, housing and and others, are something we would never use. So making the council even less valuable to us, will hardly make us cheer, at more above inflation increases in the council tax.
Second, it’s a fly-tippers charter. This will trash the countryside.
Third, it’s almost bound to provoke neighbourhood disputes as neighbours look to use each others bins covertly.
Fourth, many people may simply burn vast amounts of rubbish on an old barbecue, can anyone seriously think this is desirable.
Can I suggest you propose an amendment, whereby those of us who are council tax payers have the option to opt out of all council services and are therefore excluded from council tax liability, save for a tiny contribution for public goods like lighting. I am very confident I can dispose of my refuse for less than several thousand pounds a year.
Well said.
Your rebuttal of this nonsensical proposal was excellent.
Public health must be the top priority.
This stupid regime was introduced in Bolton by the Lib Dems in 2005. They were subsequently ousted from office last May, as both Labour and Conservative groups pledged to re-instate the weekly collection. This has now been done and we see this mendacious Labour government trying to force it on the whole country. Please strive to prevent this madness from being forced onto the British people.
PS Were you invited to meet Gore yesterday? I bet you weren’t. Cameron was obviously star struck - judging by his blog. Pity he has such a closed mind to such matters and seems unable to even contemplate any alternative views. He goes down in my estimation daily.
We’ve had fortnightly bin collections for ages, one week they collect the bin, the next week they collect the recycling bin. Our council recycles 35% of waste too.
It works for us, but when I was living in a student house last year, with 4 other young adults all producing waste, and the no bin provided by the council, we had to store rubbish bags in the back garden until bin day. We got rats in the end, someone left the back door open one night and one fo the little so-and-so’s got into the kitchen.
I had to wait until I could hear it scratching around under one of the units, then block up the hole it was using to get in and out. Then I tipped a combination of household chemicals down the back of the cupboard it was under to make chlorine - it worked, we never heard it again. There’s probably still a dead rat under there though.
Dear John
This is an easy bandbaggon issue to jump onto, but not introducing alternative weekly collecions AWCs and staying with weekly collections will put up council tax, if there is to be added investment in the necessary recyccling bin and vehicle infrastructure. I have the Twin Bin and Alternative Weekly Collection. What do I think. Currently it works well as I do not produce masses of waste food. It is an excellent idea to increase collection efficiency with the concept of “Restwaste” and to increase recycling by giving extra capacity and convenience with the second recycle bin. Residents need to think of Recycling first, disposal second, rather than cureently vice versa. The point I wish to raise is if AWC are supported by Integrated “Weekly” Kitchen Waste collections using kitchen caddies and small cheap nippy transit van collection, this negates putrescent food waste waiting 14 days in the residual waste bin. So my view is lets not go back to weekly mixed rubbishcollections, lets get AWC/Twin bins collections in place and more forward with separated weekly Kitchen Waste collections (these add 10% to total collection costs whilst capturing 20% of waste that is Kitchen waset) to collect the christmas turkey and the summer BBQ. waste. Lets move forward, not backwards with collections. Weekly Kitchen Waste collections and AWC are the way forward. Mixed weekly collections solve nothing.
The points you make are completely right in my view Mr.Redwood. One further point that I have not seen mentioned anywhere is how will the average refuse vehicle (whether 3 axle or 4) cope with the extra weight of two weeks weight of rubbish instead of one? In my area of North Wales to cope with a two weekly cycle the heaviest Volvo 4 axle vehicles are being used and run back to base two or three times per day to offload thereby increasing mileage and emissions and importantly significantly lowering the productivity of very expensive equipment.
We’ve had to get used to this fortnightly scheme and it does force you to recycle because there isn’t enough room in your bin otherwise if you have a family. Our Borough’s recycling rate has gone up from 10% to 40% in just four years.
The main problem arises if you are on holiday on your ‘regular waste’ recycling week at the same time as your neighbour because you can’t put your bin out and miss the collection so waste can be in your bin for upto four weeks in the summer! Not pleasant and hard to take a wheely bin to the general tip so you have to half empty it and take it off yourself.
The Christmas collection is also a major problem because if it is your recycling collection week the extra general waste that is created over the Christmas week isn’t collected (and side waste isn’t picked up the following week). The green bin for cardboard and garden waste is also not collected, suspended to assist with the collection of the other groups regular waste collection.
Recycling does cause more work and many people can’t be bothered which causes the problem, you have to rinse out tins and bottles and clean jars, clean out and wash plastic containers of milk and other household products - then you have to squash them to fit them all in the tub. You have to wrap chicken bones and put the waste into a tied plastic bag before putting it into a black sack and this cuts down on smells and threats of pests.
I wonder though if our recycling has improved so much, and our landfill taxes reduced and the sale of recycling matter gone up why haven’t our rates reflected this, surely we should be rewarded for doing so well and then people would feel much better about it.
Honestly and truly, I don’t see the point in recycling, despite the blather of propaganda the figures don’t add up, here’s why: There are no council schemes to recycle 1968 Ferraris because they have an economic value, and so the council don’t on their own terms need
If people are still concerned about AWC’s they should pressure there councils to introduce Weekly Sorted Food Waste Collections, as a substitute and support AWC. This is being done in 20 local authorities at the moment and going really well. It involves a sealed 60 litre kitchen Caddy that all food waste, tea bags, egg shells, chicken, bones, veg, fruit etc is separated out. The caddy is lined with a biodegradable bag liner. A small 3 tonne lorry comes around every week and everyones caddy is emptied on a regular bassis. No smells, no pests, no maggots.
The small lorry (waste heavy/ not bulky) goes off to a specialist small scale facility with a Biogest (Anaerobic Digestion)or Invessel Aerobic Composter. I takes 4-6 weeks for the food waste to be turned into fertiliser or compost that can be used in gardens, farmland or allotments. Totally recycled. The AD biogest has the extra benefit of producing and capturing methane biogas that can be used in local transport or generator to produce electricity to feed back into the National Grid.
Bristol City Council is a good example of where it has worked, and it is particularly suitable for Urban and City wards where terraced properties make home composting difficult/ impossible and via Communual Collection Schemes for flatted properties.
With this system 90% of food is taken out of the Fortnightly rubbish bin which solves smells and pests etc. What is left in the rubbish (residual) bin is less, less complicated and less contaminated. Therefore residual technologies such as Steam Autoclaves (Mechanical Heat Treatment), Mechanical Biological Treatment or Plasma gasifiers can better recovery plastics, metals and soils cardboard/ paper, without the volume of food complicating it, and reduced volumes of contaminated compost/digest from these processes. With Weekly Food Waste Collections, less smells, pests, less landfill/incineration, more recycling, composting and green energy/ biogas. Lobby your local council for it, as Defra are promoting this route in Chapter 5 of the new English Waste Strategy.