Thursday, January 29, 2009

Black Bins Appear

Well Black Bins are beginning to make an appearance along my road. The Council seems to hope that these will be the magic bullet solution to the problems with the new bin scheme.

As Councillor Gary Parker says "The introduction of a third bin for residual waste should further improve the situation. The reason for this is it will assist those who are reluctant to place residual waste in black sacks."

At the moment there's only a very small number of the black topped bins and certain properties which have repeated problems with dumping black sacks out in the wrong week or filling up their bins with the wrong waste don't have them. So are they on the way or is this it?

The houses that do have them also don't appear to have had any of their old bins taken away, so the pavements are looking impressively cluttered right now.

You can read more about the Council's view on the black bins here.

It's interesting to note that they try and make it sound like they're giving us a choice with the new bins rather than admitting that they're doing it to try and tackle the problems with the new scheme. Problems that the Council haven't had the tenacity, honesty or resolve to genuinely attend to.

It's also very interesting to read that to "be eligible for wheeled bins, you must be able to store the bin off the highway and where it can be reached without steps."

Not so.

Walk down Floyd Road and you'll see a number of black wheeled bins outside houses that don't have anywhere to store them.

So if you do want a bin and the Council say "no" because you don't have anywhere to store it then ask them why they're giving them out to some streets.

Anyway let's just see what happens over the next few weeks.

Personally I'm willing to bet that we'll continue to see black sacks on the street in the wrong weeks, over spilling wrongly filled bins that won't be taken by the regular collections and extra rubbish collections every week to deal with those issues.

I don't think that black bins alone are going to solve the problems, heads will have to be removed from sand and contact actually made with the residents who are having problems in order to get it sorted out. To me that would appear to actually be the easier option as opposed to buying in a whole new load of bins, but maybe that's just me.

10 comments:

Unknown said...

I noticed that there were black topped bins being delivered as I left for work this morning. So, that is one year the Council allowed for their scheme to fail. Because it is true, what they are doing is giving in. Black topped bins, I believe, are basically for 'landfill waste' so those that can't be bothered can just go back to stuffing all their waste into that bin to be collected - or are the Council going to police those bins to make sure that doesn't happen?!

Mark said...

Yes it is somewhat of an admission of defeat.

The Council are willing to spend money to fund extra collections and to buy new bins rather than actually try to solve the problems with their new scheme.

However it is for a relatively small number of residents and given as how their bins were going to landfill anyway then in a way there's no real loss. At least now the black bins are in place the Council must be hoping that while the waste will continue to go to landfill they can at least cut back on the extra collections they're having to do.

It's a shame though that the Council's lack of spine is matched only by the depth of it's pockets when it comes to covering up the problems they've created.

J J said...

Apparently there are two sizes of black topped bins.

The ones that are currently being delivered are the small ones. If you ordered a large one it should arrive in a few weeks.

So I'm told!

I would say let's wait and see, but that's what we all said this time last year.

Anonymous said...

It's kind of funny really - when this scheme started I had a row with the council about where I was going to store my black bags in between the bi-weekly collections.

As we compost everything we can, there was basically only a caddy's worth of waste in the big green wheelie. I asked the council if I could paint the lid black & store my bags in it - I was basically told that it would be considered vandalism because the bin belonged to the council! Looks like my council tax is being spent wisely & my front garden wil be rather cluttered!

Mark said...

JJ, the bins that have appeared along my street are "normal" size black bins, they're not the half size ones.

Who told you that what's currently being delivered are the small ones?

J J said...

I was told by the people who were delivering them.

They are the small bins because I could see them on the lorry. When I asked when the large ones will be delivered, I was told, 'Not for a few weeks,' as they had 40,000 small ones to deliver first.

Maybe the left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing.

Whatever made me think of that?

Mark said...

Are you suggesting that the new bin scheme could still be a disorganised shambles over a year since it was brought it?

Surely not!

J J said...

Moi !!

I can't help being a cynic. It's a condition forced upon me by living in Greenwich.

Anonymous said...

Charlton,
large black topped bins delivered to Pound Park road on Wednesday 28th.

Beabarb said...

Meanwile in snowy Plumstead both sizes have appeared in my street, although mine hasn't. No doubt it has been "borrowed" by another household.