Fighting over the rubbish

I see that whilst I have been away, quite a fight has broken out over waste and recycling collections in central Swindon.

Now that a quango has changed its guidance on alternate weekly collections, particularly in relation to food waste, Councillor Montaut has written an open letter to Mr Wren, the councillor in charge of waste and recycling, questioning the decision to collect ‘non-recyclable’ waste once per fortnight, and has then gone on to play petty politics with the issue. It is also worth noting that Mr Montaut is rather selecive in which parts of said quango’s guidance he chooses to take note of, with some of his points (e.g. about the effect of fortnightly collections on recycling rates) totally contradicting the same guidance document that he quotes elsewhere.

What Mr Montaut hasn’t questioned are the rules about who does and who does not get a wheelie bin, which seem to have been applied differently in the vicinity of the council leader’s home than the rest of central Swindon. But then, frequency of collection is, to some extent, an issue for all of Swindon, whereas the problem of where to put a wheelie bin is only an issue in the cramped terraces of central Swindon, so, as he lives in Moredon (oddly enough the ward of Councillor Wren), Mr Montaut is not personally affected.

(I note in passing that, according to the August edition of Swindon News, the start date for fortnightly wheelie bin collections has been put back from September to November, though they will be introduced over just two weeks from 5th November rather than over six months as originally advertised.)