The failings in the publicity for Swindon Borough Council’s new fortnightly waste collections are now getting some news media coverage, from both the BBC and the Adver. The tone of both, though, is that this is just a temporary problem, that once people realise their waste will only be collected once a fortnight, the problem will go away. I don’t believe that. In streets with wheelie bins, some have a long way to go to bring their waste down to the one-wheelie-load per fortnight limit. It’s the same in blue bag streets, where many houses have put out several blue bags (I counted five outside one house in Westcott Place this morning), rather than just two as prescribed by the council.
The council say they’ll collect black bags for just one more week (this one). Unless there’s a big education effort on increasing recycling and reducing waste, it looks as though the streets of Swindon are going to be foul with uncollected waste for many weeks or months to come.
I feel I should apologise for overstating how obvious the ‘no black bag collections after 5 November’ statement was. Looking out in my street a few minutes ago, there was not a black bag in sight (our traditional collection would have been tomorrow morning), but Westcott Place and the Railway Village are very much black bag ago-go areas. I thus deduce that the little-yellow-label-on-plastic-bag’ communication method was not uniform across the town and other less fortunate souls may have had this important communication via more obscure means.
I also note that some in the Railway Village have taken the ‘there will be no collections from the alleyways’ message to heart, and have moved their wheelie bins to the fronts of their houses.
I’m not aware of there being a ‘Most incompetent communications exercise’ competition for local councils, but it seems that the current administration would be the unchallengeable winners if there were.
The rather active populous at the other end of central ward have set-up a new blog for the campaign against fortnightly rubbish collections, as opposition extends in Swindon beyond the local area. For those interested in the campaign, it has some useful information. The same people have also reported a certain level of confusion from the council workers as to who will have a wheelie bin collection and who will not. To tell people that a wheelie bin is only for storing rubbish in and that rubbish will not be collected from it (they need to take the rubbish out of the wheelie bin before putting it out for collection) is to bring the whole process down to the level of farce.
It is with sadness that we note today the passing of weekly rubbish collections. Born in the Victorian era as a health measure, weekly rubbish collections had an honourable, if un-noted, life maintaining the general sanitation of Swindon’s streets. Weekly rubbish collections leaves three younger siblings (weekly recycling collection, fortnightly garden waste collection and fortnightly plastic bottle collection) and two children (fortnightly wheelie bin collection and his exclusive brother weekly blue bag collection).
Weekly rubbish collections’ funeral was held early this evening at a landfill site in Wiltshire. At the request of his ‘guardian’ Mr Wren, no flowers please.
In all the arguments over whether central Swindon should or should not have wheelie bins, one issue seems to have been consistently overlooked. As seen again in the council’s response to the latest protests in the Broadgreenarea, the only concern seems to be whether wheelie bins can be fitted into the space in front of the houses. They do not seem to be thinking about how much slower the collections in central Swindon might become with wheelie bins.
At the moment, the dustmen can quickly and easily hoist a black bag straight over my front wall, without coming in through the gate. It takes no more than a couple of seconds. Come November they’ll have to come through my (sprung) gate, manœuvre the bin out through the gate (which by now will have closed), between the parked cars to the dustcart. Then repeat the action in reverse once the bin is empty. In the more spacious suburbs, where the manœuvring will be much easier, this might be quite quick. In the Victorian terraces it will not. I get the impression that nobody has thought at all about how much more this will cost in time and hence money.
I arrived home today to find my new wheelie bin waiting for me. Now I’m content enough with the small wheelie bin that, as I requested, I have received. It’s a little difficult to manœuvre around the narrow space between my gate and the front of my house (how I would have managed with a full size bin I’m not sure), but apart from that it’s fine. What annoys me is the nonsense contained in the leaflet that came with it.
Where and when should my bin be left for collection? Your wheelie bin should be put at a point on your own property that is nearest the public highway,
That’ll be right in by my front door then.
where it is visible and accessible to to the collection crews.
As the bin is about twice the height of my front wall, it should be pretty difficult to miss, though given the record so far of the bin-men emptying my orange recycling boxes, I may need to train it to do a song and dance routine to get them to notice it. As to being accessible, at the moment the binmen hoick a black bag out of my dustbin ove the brick wall, without coming through the gate. WIth the wheelie bin, it is too deep for them to reach in and it will be difficult for them to manœuvre out of my gate.
Why change to a wheelie bin? It reduces the amount of rubbish that is sent to costly and environmentally-damaging landfill by encouraging recycling
What? Just where did that demonstrable bit of nonsense come from? A wheelie bin does not of itself have any impact on the level of recycling, as anyone who lived (as I did) in a city where wheelie bins were introduced over eighteen years ago, way before doorstep recycling was introduced, would know. In fact, as the standard size wheelie bin is about four times the size of an old fashioned dustbin, if anything it could be said to encourage the throw-away society. By Mr Wren’s own admission, the biggest impact on the level of recycling in Swindon has been the introduction of separate doorstep collection of plastic bottles. The main influences on the level of recycling are making recycling easier by providing separate doorstep collection, and restricting the amount of ‘non-recyclable’ waste that the council will collect. The means by which that ‘non-recyclable’ waste is collected (be it by wheelie bin or for the anointed few by blue bag) is an irrelevance. It is bad enough that the council have foisted this change upon the residents of central Swindon with a sham consultation: it is an insult to the intelligence of the Swindon electorate that councillors and council officers continue to attempt to confuse the two issues of increasing recycling and the method of waste collection.
From the latest comments from Mr Wren, it would seem that the most significant factor in increasing the level of recycling in Swindon is nothing to do with the frequency with which ‘non-recyclable’ rubbish is collected, nor is it related to the introduction of wheelie bins. What matters is the council making it easy to recycle what wasn’t recycled before.
Since introducing the new plastic bottle recycling scheme we have experienced a surge in the amount of waste being recycled rather than just sent to landfill.
Lets hope that the success of this ‘carrot’ influences future policy in this area, so that their is rather less emphasis on the ‘stick’. It’s nice too to see that Mr Montaut has finally finally caught-up on the primary issue of concern to his electorate in relation to the new waste collections.
However, the biggest concern is the blanket view taken over which residents will be required to have wheelie bins.
I see that wheelie bins have even arrived in the back-alleys of the railway village now.
It’s nice to see that Mr Montaut hasn’t lost the ability to grab every photo opportunity that presents itself. Admittedly, it’s also nice that he actually makes his presence known within the ward, which is more than can be said for some of our representatives, who seem to be following an established tradition of showing more interest in places elsewhere. It’s just a pity that whenever he chooses to talk, so much hypocriticalgarbagepours out.
Central ward councillor Derique Montaut said that the clean-up was a step closer to a happier community. He said: “This kind of activity is essential to promote good feeling in the community and the work that’s been done over the recent months in other parts of the town has been superb.”
Hmm… I could have sworn he put a leaflet through my door when campaigning for election just six months ago claiming
But we need an active Council that will use its anti social behaviour powers to curb yobbish behaviour, vandalism and graffiti. The Tories have failed to do this…. Since taking control of Swindon the Tories have regularly cut and under invested in the important issue of street cleaning.
I wonder how long it will be before his party is suggesting that this was all down to his personal effort and money from central government, and nothing to do with the current council administration. Nor the local community.
Jean, the director of children and families at Swindon Council, said: “I am not denying there has been any litter but it’s been a lot lower than we had expected, which is great news…. It’s something that residents should take real pride in and if they have helped clear the streets themselves, they have made an investment in the community.”
It’s difficult to believe the excuses that are given sometimes for the problems with the new waste and recycling collections in Swindon. This quote comes from one of the council’s recycling officers.
Collection is difficult in some areas because of the layout of streets, but we are trying to sort it out
Except, perhaps, for a few streets in North Swindon which have only just been built, the council were collecting rubbish without problems before the recycling service started, so why the problems now? The vehicles used are no bigger than those used before.
It seems that the ability to think logically departs councillors whenever they have to talk about recycling. This time, it is the turn of Mr Barnett to join the stiffcompetition for the recycled wooden spoon.
We have had problems with the bins overflowing as the company who collect the rubbish are in Gloucester.
Well, if that’s a problem, it doesn’t bode well for the citizens of North Wiltshire, now that the county council has won its bid for unitary status: Wiltshire County Council is based in Trowbridge, which is just as far from parts of North Wilts as Gloucester is from Swindon. And by Mr Barnett’s logic, waste collection in the Scottish Highlands must be virtually impossible.
