Doorstep rubbish collections are being scrapped with families being required instead to use huge communal bins in a scheme that might be introduced across the country.And the elderly and disabled…? How are they supposed to cope with a 150 yard walk with heavy rubbish sacks?
Brighton & Hove City Council will begin installing 3,200-litre communal bins in 500 streets next week – one for every 40 homes. For some residents the bins will be 150 yards away. Once the scheme is ready, dustmen will no longer remove black sacks from outside homes.
The system, which will leave 27,000 families without weekly collections, is being watched closely by other councils and some towns are already preparing similar arrangements.Which is chickenfeed frankly, when you consider the upheaval this is going to cause and the resentment among council tax payers.
Brighton council has calculated that introducing the communal bins, which will cost £615,000, will save £970,000 over seven years.
Waste campaigners said yesterday that the change could signal the end of traditional rubbish collections, which date back more than 130 years. Supporters say that communal bins, common on the Continent, are more convenient and lead to tidier streets.I’m not sure it’s the bins that do that – proper policing, greater pride in your surroundings, real feelings of community, they may well have more to do with it.
The Local Government Association supports the scheme, but says that the choice of rubbish collection system should be decided locally. “You cannot prescribe from the centre that every single home must have a bin which must be emptied every week,” a spokesman said.Don’t be fooled – when they say it must be ‘decided locally’, they mean by the council, not by the mugs actually paying for it.
Greens are up in arms over this, as it might spell disaster for their ‘return to hairshirt’ policies:
Environmental campaigners fear a reduction in recycling. Caroline Lucas, the Green Party leader and South East MEP, said that families might find it harder to separate items daily and the large size of the bins could encourage wastefulness.Yes, quite. When we can’t get rid of the recycling we already have, I really don’t think we need worry about a slowdown in the amount generated, Caroline….
Yep - mix it all up in giant corporate bins and recycling goes out the window, as it should. Hooray for Brighton!
ReplyDeleteOnly...Rubbish collection was set up for PUBLIC HEALTH REASONS.
It was intended as a public service for the public good. 'Public service' here meaning that if the service gets done, irrespective of who pays, all the public are served. See, if you leave litter lying around you get more rats and flies and disease and awful smells and the whole neighbourhood goes down the swanny.
The 'public good' here being the absence of filth in the streets and the poor health that comes from squalor.
You know: 'poor health and bad housing' - the very kind of reasons that Lefty-Liberals think excuse and explain why teenagers mug old ladies or other kids, and why men sometimes beat their wives and kids, or why drug addicts become drug addicts in the first place.
Councils that treat rubbish collection and disposal as if they were private services (who cares if you get your milk and papers delivered or have to go to the shops instead? - nobody else is harmed) are just missing the point.
All they are doing by making doorstep rubbish collection difficult or ending it altogether is to make it more likely that more people for many reasons not limited to ill health, physical weakness and age, will just dump their stuff in the street.
The subsidised gym-attending town hall bureaucrats who thought up this scheme can heft a few bin liners up the road (or down the drive) quite easily each week.
These people couldn't hit Mister Clue if they were confined to a phone box with him and armed with a baseball bat...
I hope they get a rebate for council tax.
ReplyDeleteMaybe the government should just admit "Hey were the sole surviving mafia outfit so pay up and don't expect anything". It's the dishonesty that gets me.
"It was intended as a public service for the public good."
ReplyDeleteAnd how far we've come from those ideals, eh?
They call it 'progress'. Not sure why...
"Maybe the government should just admit "Hey were the sole surviving mafia outfit so pay up and don't expect anything". "
With evey action, they seem to be announcing just that.
That particular system is used here in Spain.
ReplyDeleteIt has its good points and bad.
The best of which is you are not penalised for how much or what you throw away.
Where possible, the town council do try to use a piece of wasteland to store the bins and there are separate bins for recycling. You can also leave furniture and white goods. When that occurs, other people will stop and rummage through these items and pick themselves up a bit of second hand furniture
The bad end of the deal is obviously if you have three or four of these monstrosities just outside your front door. In the hot weather the smell can be quite sickening and the stray cats and dogs are forever pulling the bags to pieces.
The bin men come at 3am to empty them and it can be noisy.
I don't have a collection of bins outside my house but am within walking distance of two lots. I must admit I prefer the system.
They are usually within a short distance of most people's houses and the elderly do not seem to have a problem. Saying that, the sense of community is stronger here and most people will offer to help those less capable of making it to the corner of the street.
Thanks for giving us the virew from people who are really using it!
ReplyDelete"Where possible, the town council do try to use a piece of wasteland to store the bins..."
Hopefully, ours will do the same. Or rent one of the many empty shops that will soon be littering the High Street...
"In the hot weather the smell can be quite sickening and the stray cats and dogs are forever pulling the bags to pieces."
That's a big concern to me. I can imagine how often they will be emptied.
"Saying that, the sense of community is stronger here and most people will offer to help those less capable of making it to the corner of the street."
I'd like to think that would be true here, but I doubt that sense of 'community' exists in the places that these bins will be trialled.