Residents confused by waste collections
Wednesday 14th January 2009, 12:45PM GMT.
Shropshire County Council bosses are to hold talks with waste contractors after confusion over collections left residents in uproar.
The council and contractors Veolia said information about green bins not being collected over the festive period was stated on the bin calendar sent out in the autumn.
But a supplementary leaflet sent out after that, covering Christmas and New Year, did not mention the service changes.
As a result hundreds of bins were left out and went uncollected.
Gareth Proffitt, Shropshire Waste Partnership spokesman, said: “Waste and recycling collection calendars were distributed to all households in the Shrewsbury and Atcham area last autumn, giving collection dates between October 2008 and May 2009.
“These calendars state that there would be no garden waste collection over the Christmas and New Year period, but that recycling boxes would be collected, and that there would also be an extra collection of refuse.
“However, we will work with our contractors Veolia to see if this information can be made clearer on future calendars.”
Residents across the Shrewsbury area have hit out at council bosses over the issue after bins were left out in Castlefields, Sutton Road, Ford and Bayston Hill, as well as dozens of other areas.
A spokeswoman for Veolia said yesterday the company was resuming the green bin waste collections after they had been suspended over Christmas.
She said: “We had extra household waste collections over the Christmas period because people find they have more household waste than green so we suspended that.”
Eleanor Evans, of Ford, noticed the bins were all out in the village and contacted the council, who informed her it was on the calendar, but they did not mention the leaflet.
Graham Oliver, of Sutton Road, Shrewsbury, was also left baffled by the claim that the change had been marked on the calendar – as he had referring to the leaflet.
By Rhea Parsons
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Well it was i believe quite clear.
There would be an extra collection ie blue bin along with recycling boxes(not the green wheelie bin)as they consider that to be used for garden waste.However most use that for the cardboard ect which the powers that be thought we would all put it in the green box. Most did not. They put it in the green wheelie bin which would not be collected.
The main point is the green wheelie bin was NOT going to be collected and that was very clear it was marked with a little star.Granted it was pin head size on the calander.
Again granted not very good if you need glasses and have not accepted the fact yet.How ever that is not an excuse to leave wheelie bins all over the place on the pavement and public highway just becouse you are to lazy to put it back. If they are not coming put it back on your property.
Now i was not caught out by this error, only on the collection on xmas eve i never put my recycling boxes out early enough should have been by 7am but they came earlier than that around 6.15am. Cant balme them for wanting to get back early on xmas eve and get ready for santa.
I however put all my bottles/tins in the recycling boxes and rammed everything else in the blue wheelie bin hence empty bins and no bins left outside for weeks.
Think ahead folks.
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It seems amazing to me that over a holiday period where gifts are exchanged and people are at home that the green waste was suspended i personally worked in the garden, had loads of extra cardboard packaging and ended up making 2 trips to the HWRC at Battlefield purely to drop off green waste.
It would have made more sense to have a complete service for both waste types each week to me!
I cannot believe we were the only people taking advantage of the time and the drier weather!
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Thank god I don’t live in the UK anymore. What a miserable depressing country to live in.
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My green bin has been out since the 17th December when it was my daughters birthday and due to be collected. It was completely filled with cardboard from presents and was NOT collected. I have also had to take two trips to the Household Waste centre on Battlefield to counteract this. My green bin was last emptied on 3rd December and is not due to be emptied until next Wednesday. Not good enough by any standards but especially when we are all doing our best to help with recylcing and considering the cost of Council Tax. In Spain the rubbish is collected EVERY single day!
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I have to agree with Susie, both refuse and recycling bins should have been emptied over the festive/new year period. Yes, we all have lots more household waste but with many presents having cardboard packaging of some type at Christmas, it seems most people have overflowing green bins and have found the need to visit the refuse centre at Battlefield. I was aware of the extra refuse collection, only by checking the website, and put my bin out accordingly. However, the refuse collectors walked straight past it and seemed more interested in having a chat and getting back into the warm cab of the bin wagon. I very much doubt I’ll be receiving a credit on my council tax bill for it! Seems to me Veolia are going to be causing us all lots of problems in one way or another. Brian’s the lucky one for escaping this crazy country.
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Well well if only we were all as observants dear Mr Finch the country would not be in such a mess as it is!!
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But we do not live in spain.
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The fact that a large percentage of people were confused is proof enough that the notification was inadequate.
Also yes, more cardboard is definitely an issue over Christmas and many people are at home and may well do some winter pruning.
Waste sorting and collection is a nightmare these days.
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All be be aware for 2009 burn what you can and throw everything else in the blue bin.
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I only use main bin, cause I am so confused by all these bins and which weeks n days they go out on. Been set up to fail!
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The green issues are a tax scam, always have been always will.
Look at the land fill and the upcoming nice new runway at heathrow, an inconvenient truth!!
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ever since the french took over doing the bins, its been rubbish, vote conservative and we will get rid of this socialist invention of fortnightly rubbish collections, our leader and eric pickles have promised, we will end this recycling chaos, this diktat from brussels is not needed in our town, once we get that burner going the waste of space recycling service can be axed and they can collect my bin once a week, like i pay them for
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MR Profit says it all – since the collections got privatised, the PROFIT has gone up and the service has gone backwards, what a rubbish idea, making profits out of a public services, shame on the clowns who voted to privatise this essential public service and fail to communicate about it, no doubt they could have paid for some additional communications but no doubt that would have effected their bottom line and reduced their profit,
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its not the main calender we recieved that confused us, its the leaflet than i got on my bin in december, if you look it clearly showed a list of dates in green and as like most people on my street i’d thrown the main calender away, i put my green bin out like 90% of the folk in the street, the leaflet made no mention of extra rubbish collections or suspended green collections,
what is the point of putting on extra rubbish collections if you fail to publicise that fact!?
someones head should be on the block for this folly, but oh no this is the public sector, no one admits it, no one says sorry, this never happened when Shrewsbury & Atcham ran the service, ever since the new lot took over its gone down hill.
if they cannot even get a simple leaflet right then what hope for this incinerator
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Can people not read?
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“since the french took over the bins”. and pray which government outsourced waste collections, er maggie thatcher and john major’s tory party. thanks tory boy for reminding us. as for eric pickles i suspect wilfred pickles would have difficulty sorting our rubbish. as the french dustmen say- maggie et une petit vache mon brave. any more tory howlers to reveal tory boy!
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It caught pretty well everyone out around me! my wifes mobile hairdresser noticed on her way down our road that the blue bins were being picked up not the green ones so luckily my was put out pronto! apparantly the Telord sheet shows which bins are picked each week but we get a leaflet weeks before!!!!
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sounds like the council are trying to shift the blame onto their contractor typical – do they not check the leaflets themselves? amateurs
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Sounds like its the residents not reading it thats the problem no?
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its really not been good communication all round i feel
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damn the french
BRING BACK WEEKLY BIN DAY!
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Where i come from in Sweden, the waste is all sent to a municipal incinerator to heat the local municipal swimming baths, we have much less confusion, this seems odd to me to have some many different bins and different dates
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i think this is a typical example of Council not listening to people and not communicating, its a little leaflet but it exemplafies an attitude of we know best, heres our system, do it, no negotiation, no communication, no motivation or common sense at all
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this is mad crazy…. your told dont put letters and bill’s in the recycle bin cos of i,d theft the council say ‘we dont except shredded paper for recycling’ and your not able to burn it…. what the hell am i ment to do with it? eat it?????
this country is crazy….get out now before it gets worse
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