No return to weekly collections

Surrey Advertiser, 20 July
>>>>> Click here to see full story

Waverley Borough Council’s new Tory administration made it clear this week that it has no plans to return to weekly waste and recycling collections. “This council chose to go to alternate weekly collections and we have no plans to revert back to a weekly collection of wheelie bins,” said council leader, Cllr Richard Gates.

Independent councillor Alan Lovell said people were more concerned about the frequency of collections, smells, vermin and the number of bins, and called for a delay in implementing the same day/ catch-up system until agreement was reached on a broader strategy of waste and recycling collections following public consultation.

Cllr Lovell’s proposal was easily defeated, but the opposition kept up its attack, Lib Dem group leader Cllr Ken Reed pointing to Tory election material which highlighted the need for a “workable system that stops our bins smelling in summer”.

Waste collection articles

Ministers face EU probe over landfill waste
Sunday Times, 10 June

DAVID MILIBAND, the environment secretary, faces an European Union investigation over allegations his department is using misleading figures to show councils are sending less rubbish to landfill. It is claimed the government is allowing councils to exploit a loophole which means that rubbish can be dumped “off the books” using the private sector. The allegations come after a Sunday Times investigation last week exposed how materials for recycling were being sent to landfill.>>>> See full story here

Victory for 30,000 in weekly bin battle
Daily Mail, 1 June

More than 30,000 homes are to have weekly rubbish collections restored in a Uturn by town halls. But in return for once-a-week visits by dustmen they will be required to take part in recycling schemes which mean all scrap food will have to be thrown into kitchen slop buckets.
The resumption of weekly bin pickups is part of a test run for the new rubbish collection system announced last week by Environment Secretary David Miliband. >>>> See full story here

Cash carrot to curb the family's rubbish
Daily Telegraph, May 25

After months of speculation, ministers declared yesterday that they would not give councils the power to introduce a flat-rate "rubbish tax" which every household would have to pay on top of council tax. Yet despite that decision, the proposals unveiled in the Commons by the Environment Secretary David Miliband mean many homes will still end up paying more to have their rubbish collected. Ministers said they wanted to give councils the power to introduce "incentive" schemes which would see those who produce the least non-recyclable waste earning a rebate, with those producing the most paying extra.

‘Chip-and-bin’ tax aims to force more recycling
Times Online, May 24

Householders are facing an extra tax on their rubbish under plans announced today to increase recycling and reduce landfill waste.In a policy document entitled Waste Strategy for England 2007, David Miliband, the Environment Secretary, will disclose proposals to allow local councils to implement a “pay-as-you-throw” scheme using wheelie bins fitted with electronic sensors.

Plan to put slop bucket in every home
Times Online, May 20

Ministers want a slop bucket for food waste to be placed in every kitchen under their latest plan to generate green electricity. Instead of throwing out scraps, households would be required to store them separately for at least a week until they are collected by recycling teams. Food accounts for about a fifth of domestic waste and releases greenhouse gases when dumped in landfill. The idea was inspired by the government’s waste body, Wrap, which found that homes across Britain waste a total of 3.3m tons of food a year.

Blair supports weekly bin collections as voters threaten backlash
Telegraph, 3 May >>>>>> Click here for full story

Tony Blair effectively disowned his own Government's drive towards fortnightly rubbish collections when he came out in support of the weekly bin round.With two days to go before crucial local elections in which Labour faces a backlash over the unpopular policy, the Prime Minister admitted he did not like the idea of having his own bins emptied on alternate weeks. The Prime Minister said he understood why many councils had switched to fortnightly collections in order to encourage recycling. But he believed there were "better ways" for them to persuade people to adopt a greener approach to refuse.


Thousands join the bin fight online
Telegraph 28 April click here to see full story


More than 10,000 people have now joined one woman's crusade to save weekly bin collections. Doretta Cocks, who has a degree in environmental science, began campaigning after fortnightly collections were introduced more than 10 years ago by her local authority in Hamp-shire, Eastleigh Borough Council.Editor's note: her website is at: http://www.weeklywaste.com/

Asthma link to late bin pickup
The Times, 22nd April

Handling rubbish that has been left out for a fortnight before being collected can increase the risk of health problems including asthma and nausea, a study has found. Researchers found that the level of bacteria and fungal spores in the air above bins that had not been emptied for two weeks was more than 10 times that in locations where there was a weekly collection.
>>>>>> See complete story here


£185,000 in fines for householders who put rubbish out at wrong time
Times Online, April 13th
click here to see full story

Thousands of people across the country have been fined for putting out their rubbish on the wrong day. More than a dozen councils have levied fines since the introduction of legislation a year ago enabling local authorities to pursue residents, a Times investigation has found.Fixed penalties totalling more than £185,000 have been issued to people who put their rubbish out for the binmen too early, even if they breached the council’s time limit by only a few hours. Some householders have been targeted for leaving wheelie bins on the street.NoteThe Clean Neighbourhoods and Environment Act came into effect on April 6, 2006 — Councils can issue a fixed-penalty notice to residents who persistently fail to put their rubbish out at the right time and date


20 March 2007
Report on Fortnightly Waste Collection
Health Impact Assessment of Alternate Week Waste -Collections of Biodegradable Waste
(click on title to see report)

This report was commissioned by Wycombe District Council (WDC) and funded by the Defra Waste Implementation Programme (WIP). It provides a review of the potential for health impacts to occur from alternate week waste collection schemes, principally in comparison with weekly collection schemes. The study focuses in particular on separate biodegradable waste collection schemes using the scheme operated by Wycombe District Council as a case study. The study was carried out to investigate any issues relating to odours, insects, rodents and the risks of disease.The alternate week waste collection scheme by WDC is known as The GROW Scheme which stands for Get Recycling Organic Waste and is the alternate week waste collection scheme by WDC. They have a grey bin for refuse and a green bin for food and garden waste, both of which are emptied on alternate weeks.The evidence suggests that no adverse health effects are associated with this alternate week collection scheme, consistent with the findings that waste management generally has a low or non-existent effect on health.Blog editor's note:There is one huge difference between the waste collection scheme offered by WDC and that offered by Waverley. While the aim is that WDC residents divert all their food waste into the green bin, they are advised that if they have problems with potentially difficult food wastes during hot periods, they may choose to deposit this into whichever bin is due to be emptied that week.

27 February 2007
Sign the Petition against charging for domestic rubbish

The petition:

We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to prohibit the introduction of any charge, over and above that included in the council tax, on the collection and disposal of domestic rubbish.Submitted by Blair Gibbs of The TaxPayers' Alliance – Deadline to sign up by: 06 May 2007
click here to sign up here today

Without consultation, some councils have started weighing household rubbish using microchips implanted in wheelie-bins. Government now advocates the nationwide application of this scheme whereby households will be charged for the amount of rubbish disposed. Schemes like this are already in place in Europe and if similar charges were introduced here, the average family could end up paying up to £120 per year, on top of council tax. The high cost will lead to more fly-tipping and backyard burning. Families will be hit hard by this new tax which cannot be justified given the 80% increase in council tax over the last decade. This bin tax, while purported to be for encouraging recycling, is in fact part of a green agenda that politicians are using merely as a new way to raise money. There are no plans to offset the charge with lower taxes elsewhere, nor are there any plans that homes that exceed recycling targets will be given a council tax discount. This is simply a tax on top of a tax.


Councils supremo hits out at new Rubbish Tax
Mail on Sunday, February 17th

Labour's proposed rubbish tax has been condemned by the most powerful figure in local government. Lord Bruce-Lockhart said Tony Blair, Chancellor Gordon Brown and Communities Secretary Ruth Kelly had backtracked on assurances that the tax would be managed locally rather than imposed by Whitehall, and accused them of trampling over the rights of council taxpayers and town halls.

Downing Street faces new mass petition against plans for 'rubbish tax'
Mail on Sunday, February 11th

The TaxPayers' Alliance is posting a petition on the Downing Street website in an attempt to persuade ministers to drop their 'pay as you throw' proposals. The campaigners are confident that thousands of angry council tax payers will join a mass crusade emulating the success of the road pricing petition.

Recycling? Let's just dump it lads
Mail on Sunday, February 11th (click to see story)

Keen to comply with council recycling rules, the householders had carefully sorted their rubbish and put it into different bags. But when the council’s binmen turned up, they had other ideas. The four-man crew picked up the recycling bags – and dumped them in a private skip hired by one of the residents. The amazing incident was caught on a camera phone and the binmen are now under investigation by the local authority.

The National Rodent Survey 2006
10 January 2007

The National Rodent Survey is undertaken annually by the National Pest Technicians Association to determine what is happening to the UKs rodent population. The findings of this, the 2006 report, gives cause for grave concern.(The full (23 page) NPTA National Rodent Survey Report 2006 which is provided as a pdf file can be viewed here).

The following is an extract:" During the year 2006 there was an unprecedented media campaign backing the concerns of many members of the public for the changes being made by Councils to household refuse from a weekly collection to a fortnightly collection system. Whilst the main reason for this change, we are told, is the need to bring in greater recycling initiatives by everyone and we certainly applaud this need to recycle materials, we believe it should not be done to the detriment of theremoval of ordinary putrescible and organic waste from homes.We think there must be put in place suitable safeguards such as:A. Ensuring the containers provided to householders are big enough and properly secure so that the waste is safely contained.B. That special collection facilities must be made available where, particularly in hot summermonths, segregated organic household waste is stored to prevent fly infestation.C. A need to guard against other pest infestations such as rats, mice and urban foxes.We believe no Council should institute a fortnightly collection system where wheelie bins are not provided. One should always remember that to support our concerns is the World Health Organisation’s (WHO’s) advice that states “Municipal waste collection should be at least once a week or once a fortnight in a cold climate”! With the possibility that global warming is all around us these recommendations should seriously be reconsidered here in the UK".

Bottom of the heap - catching up with Europe’s waste chargers
From: Local Government Association website, 9th November, 2006

The way we throw our waste away has come under great scrutiny in the British media recently. Amidst the reports about bins being micro-chipped and homeowners being aghast at the thought of more tax rises, the message that we have to change the way we deal with our waste has finally started to sink in.EU legislation is the driving force for a real change in our behaviour. If local authorities are to meet targets in the landfill Directive and avoid paying big fines, we need to find a radical solution to increase our recycling rates and to minimise overall waste.

The EU landfill Directive was brought into force in the UK in June 2002. Since then it has been introduced in a piecemeal fashion to allow industry the time to adapt. In recognition of the UK’s reliance on landfill to get rid of its waste, we were granted a four year extension to meet the EU targets.Compliance will be a financial challenge. According to the Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA), waste spending will have to almost double by 2012-13.

Locally, this means that councils will have to increase their recycling from 27% to 40% by 2010. Local authorities will face fines if they exceed their landfill allowances at an estimated cost of up to £200 million in 2013.

The current waste collection and disposal system costs authorities in the UK almost £3 billion each year, or £150 per household. Council tax pays for half of this, with the rest coming from general taxation distributed through government grant. Funding waste in this way means that most households do not know what their decisions about waste costs and there is no incentive to change behaviour.

Tonight with Trevor McDonald

On Friday, Nov 3, Tonight investigated increasingly widespread community protests against changes to refuse collection prompted by local councils' recycling drive. Many residents claimed they are paying the price for going green as their rubbish is left to pile up causing health hazards.

Click here to see details of the programme

Details of the series is available at www.itv.com/news/tonight.html


More councils pull out of weekly rubbish collection
The Sunday Times, October 16th>>>> See the full article here

As many as a third of coucils in England and Wales have stopped weekly rubbish collections for residents, reports the Sunday Times. The rest are expected to follow in a few years in response to Government pressure to reduce the amount sent to landfill.

Dawn of the Super Rat... and blame the end of weekly rubbish collections
Daily Mail, 16 September 2006>>>> See full article here

Around one third of the 376 local authorities in England and Wales are now only picking up household waste and recyclable rubbish on alternate weeks - with the rest expected to follow suit within a few years.But the strategy has given rise to an explosion in rat numbers foraging among the bags of decomposing food which pile up during the long stretches between collection days.

Public say no to alternate week collections
From Materials Recycling Week, 11 Sept 2006

While the majority of people in the UK are prepared to separate their waste materials for recycling they want their bins emptied more than once a fortnight.The findings, from an independent survey commissioned by MRW on behalf of the RWM Exhibition, show that public resistance to alternate week collection systems is still high. Two thirds of those surveyed wanted weekly collections for waste and recycling and only 17% were in favour of alternate week collection schemes. Public sentiment toward alternate week collections was shown last month in the high-profile protests in Scunthorpe, after the area’s recent introduction of the collection method.>>> See the full article here.


Campaign for Weekly Waste Collection

Residents all round the UK are expressing concerns to their local authorities and in some cases are presenting petitions with thousands of names listed. More than often these petitions are ignored. Many of you will be aware that a petition with around 1,000 signatures was presented to Waverley Borough Council recently. What's happened? Nothing.

Weekly Waste is campaigning to introduce legislation dealing specifically with frequency of perishable waste collections. They believe that by joining forces nationally, we may be able to put pressure on OUR government departments to introduce legislation dealing specifically with frequency of perishable waste collections.Witley Matters believes that those who have experienced problems or anticipate problems should make their feelings known.

You can do two things -1. Sign up on Weekly Waste to put pressure on OUR government departments http://www.weeklywaste.com/join.htm

2. Why not email the Waverley Environmental portfolio holder and tell him yourself how often you think your rubbish should be collected. Send your email to Mr Victor Scrivens at vscrivens@waverley.gov.uk
posted by Jack Lee @ Wednesday, October 11, 2006 0 comments