Wanstead’s new wheelie bins have been delivered to those houses which have been selected to take part in the Redbridge-wide trial service, heralding an end to years of black bag collections, but also raising fears of moves towards fortnightly collections.
Seven thousands homes across the borough are taking part in the scheme, collections for which begin on Monday. The council says it is hoping to reduce the cost of black bag collection – which runs at £18m a year.
The 180-litre bins will suit some houses more than others – those with drives and/or front gardens will cope with them better than those without either, and it’s not clear how the council expects these households to avoid obstructing the pavement.
It is hoped that the wheelie bins will help contribute to increasing recycling levels and also help cut businesses using domestic collection for their waste, though it is not clear what difference wheelie bins will actually make in either case.
It is true, though, that Redbridge has a big task in increasing its recycling levels – currently it recycles, reuses or composts just 24.9% of household waste, putting it at 331st place out of 345 councils in England. Bexley is the best-performing London borough, with 54.1%. (Source. )
Councillor John Howard, Redbridge cabinet member for Civic Pride, said:
“A key aim of the scheme is to keep our streets cleaner – containing rubbish in a wheelie bin will prevent animals and birds ripping open bags and making a mess in our streets, which is unpleasant for everyone and costly to clean up. Using wheelie bins for rubbish will also help keep people’s front gardens clean.
We’re testing the scheme to make sure that the bins reduce refuse tonnages and work for householders as intended, and we’re eager to hear residents’ views.”
Outside Zoology the other day [Does anybody know why it’s called that] I REALLY thought the Daleks had landed – A woman customer in Zoology wanted a cigarette – she was having [A perm?] so she was standing outside in a long black [Dracula Cloak] with pieces of silver paper in her hair while smoking – I thought they were either filming Dr.Who or it was an invasion and they had been shooting…..
I agree that it’s not clear how wheelie bins could contribute to recycling. To do this they would have to be very small, so you were forced to think more carefully about what you put in them – but they are certainly more than ample for our needs. It does say on the website: “We will then monitor all the amount of rubbish collected from the pilot areas to work out how successful the system is at reducing the amount of rubbish we collect.” So the test of more (or less) recycling appears to be the changes in the amount of rubbish collected. Perhaps the data should be published on a street-by-street level and a prize awarded?
I’ve moved out of the Wanstead area and now live in Wales where strict measures have contributed to quite good levels of recycling (circa 60% of waste is recycled). Our non-recycle waste is collected every 3 weeks but if you have nappies, sanitary towels or incontinence pads you can apply to have these collected more often (every 2 weeks I think). Food waste and recycling is collected weekly. Reducing the non recycle collections to every 3 weeks is a pain but it really makes you think about reducing how much single use plastic and non-recyclable packaging you buy in the first place.
Perhaps the reason for Redbridge being so low in the ‘recycling charts’ is that they only accept certain plastics (plastic bottles) compared with other local authorities who take ‘mixed plastics’. See the website for what they will accept. They now no longer take shredded paper, why? If you want to recycle more plastic, Sainsburys at South Woodford & Barkingside have ‘mixed plastic’ recycling bins which accept food trays, yoghurt pots etc. Why can’t Redbridge Council do this?
As for wheelie bins – totally impractical for terraced houses. Our roads will be littered with these unsightly huge bins ALL WEEK. It will enable the Council to move to fortnightly collections. As for foxes ripping open the refuse bags, don’t put them out until the morning of collection, or use a dustbin.