We pay you for waste collection – so collect it!
Tuesday 27th January 2009, 9:35AM GMT.
I suppose it was kind of inevitable. After all, it was pantomime season, writes blogger David Burrows.
Ask any Shrewsbury resident over Christmas: “What do you think of the green waste collection so far?” and you shouldn’t really be surprised by the response.
“Rubbish”.
Indeed. As in: “I’ve got a pile of rubbish building up outside my door and now I can’t get out of my house.”
In recent weeks parts of Shrewsbury have been resembling the cardboard cities that provide beds for the country’s homeless.
The reason? Council officials seeming to think we all treat the wonderfully informative leaflets they send out every five minutes as the most crucial documents we could ever receive, and therefore keep them all somewhere closeto hand in case of an amenities-based emergency.
This can be the only explanation for them sending out details about recycling arrangements over the Christmas period in the autumn, and expecting us all to know what they were come December 27.
Of course, with the worry over how to actually pay for Christmas in the middle of a recession at the forefront of their minds, some people forgot and put their waste out, only for it to remain where they left it (unless of course the weather or neighbourhood cats/dogs got their way with it).
We are always being told, these days, to “reduce, reuse, recycle” to stop the planet choking on its own vomit (or more accurately, the vomit we create from what Mother Earth gives us).
But Veolia Environmental Services or, as they were known when I was a kid, the binmen, say that over Christmas they “suspended garden and cardboard waste collection and provided additional refuse collections instead”.
The reason? “Many households do produce additional waste at this time of year.”
Yes they do – and what is the majority of that waste? Hmm…could it be the cardboard that all the Christmas presents came boxed up in?
So, a simple request for next festive season Mr Veolia. Much like I have to do with my waste before putting it in the appropriate box or bin: Get it sorted.
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i think you hit the nail on the head there mate, like the towns streets, the leaflets were a complete mess
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Muppet! What a pathetic blogger. Take your “…cardboard that all christmas presents came boxed up in” to the dump/recycling centre yourself if you have that much.
Is it really that much of a task to take note of when the seasonal collections are – after all it is obvious that they will alter – even the binmen are entitled to a holiday and to celebrate christmas.
If you invest in an item called a Magnet you will be able to neatly attach the flyers that inform residents of the seasonal refuse collection timetable to your fridge or other metallic object.
What is this world coming to?!
Get a life Burrows.
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Yeah, kinda have to agree with Ouentes on this one… when we received the notice about the seasonal collection, I put it on the fridge and wrote it on our calendar. Took me maybe two minutes? Sometimes you just have to take the initiative.
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agree with mr burrows, since october its been rubbish
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We phoned to ask when the bins would be collected and were told loads of people had phoned to ask because although they sent leaflets out in autumn, they sent new ones out nearer to xmas, which we as did many others thought took presidence over the others.
the leaflets were misleading as it said “green collection day” and the dates were highlighted in green, but this was supposed to show you the GREY bins day????
now how does that work?
apparently you were supposed to remember the other one and still use that-so why have new leaflets sent out????
typical hypocritical rubbish from our wonderful money wasting council…….
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Anybody who cant keep control of what is being collected when. just sign up for the email reminder service at http://www.greenboxday.co.uk/
you get an email reminder every week with what is to be put out. Problem solved
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get a match and burn it and withold the refuse collection charge part of your council tax.
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i found the leaflets to be incorrect when it told you to put a bin out (which we did) they didnt collect it
if you want us to recyle you should come collect the stuff
with a full time time job and kids im expected to remember pin numbers, appontments, passwords and then you want me to go round taking labels off of tin cans, wash em out, take plastic windows out of envelopes, separate paper from card make sure the plastic lids get taken off of jars then to ensure that none of the stuff is contaminated with food product? jesus you dont want much do you
the one thing that every house uses (milk cartons) and you dont do a collection for them?
this is totally mad
the bin men collect clothes aswell? thats a joke when i left a few items of clothing out for recyle they just dumped it back on my garden along with someone elses rubbish cos that wasnt recyclable…. this is the biggest joke ever
then sometimes they come round and dont bother to empty your bin at all last time that happened the youths set light to it, honestly do i have time to bring bins in and out cos the bin men cant be bothered to do their job???
ummmm……….why is this world in such a mess…. let me think…………
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Please by all means correct me here but I cannot for the life of me see why animals would want anything to do with leftover cardboard?
There are some very valid comments here, if the rubbish was that bad, why not take it to the skips yourself?
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Perhaps Mr Burrows would prefer to have rats feeding off his turkey bones, which I am sure they would prefer to cardboard?? The refuse service we recieve in the Shrewsbury area is good value for money – as only approx £80.00 per year goes to refuse collection per household.
Its about time we all took resposibility for the refuse we produce.
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what a load of rubbish
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John,
because we pay for it to be remover already,
why pay a council and then do it yourself….
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the people are clearly confused, i dont think you can just blame them for not reading it
look here
http://www.shropshirestar.com/2009/01/14/residents-confused-by-waste-collections/
loads and loads of people were confused, so clearly they got something wrong on the leaflet
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hey good idea on the green box day website, ive signed up and its great
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Actually if you look at cost of waste collection for shrewsbury & Atcham as published on the audit commissions website, its even cheaper than that at £56.60 per household per annum.
Not bad for 3 different collections and all the ancillary stuff! Contrast that to near neighbours North Shropshire District Counci who spend £83.15 per household or South Shropshire District Council who take over £100 per household for waste collection and it looks like a pretty cheap efficient service especially when you think how much deisel costs these days.
Its a common myth that the council takes 2 grand a year off each of us “just to empty the bin” but most of the council tax goes on schools and care services for the elderly. Topping up underfunding by central government for these national services.
I do think a bit of fact is always helpful in a debate
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Nice, shame that it will just fall of deaf ears as with every other problem or complaint that dosnt start with “how to improve this years flower festival”.
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yes the priorities are all wrong here, who wants flowers, surely waste is the most important service the council runs and should spend more on it than that
then they might be able to afford decent leaflets at Xmas!
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I don’t care if it’s £56 or £100, it should be right and it’s not. They never collect clothes – why? I didn’t get the bins wrong at Christmas but I could see why a lot of people would – the leaflet was very poorly designed to say the least – as the evidence proves!
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yes i too have had clothes put out for recycling as per my leaflet literally thrown back in my face when i rung to complain they said theres no space on the truck. Batteries too they sometimes accept and sometimes dont depending on what side of bed they got out of that morning. So why advertise that you can recycle them then? Its a very poor show.
I too put the “wrong” cardboard bin out at Christmas, not because im stupid or ignorant or cant read like the council think but because their leaflet again advertised one thing while the service did another.
Its appauling and it really puts you off recycling, thats what you get for your cheap “efficient” service
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i agree with mr burrows we pay for it but now this new lot are running things we only get half a service now its fortnightly its an outrage and a health hazard too we need to get davidcameron elected as PM he has promised along with erik pickles our chairman to bring back weekly bin collections in shropshire, thats what we need less beurocrats at the council, less foreign firms taking british jobs and more refuse collectors
come on people of shropshire stand up for weekly bin days
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good point….why take it to the recycle centre yourself when we pay for them to collect it? lets all pay to have our newspapers delivered and then go and collect them ourselves. i dont get it, we are recycling to help the enviroment so on recycle day why send out two trucks?? one for card and one for bottles and cans?? how the hell can that help the enviroment??? in london one recyle bin one truck job done.
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it does seem odd and unneccessarily complex to seperate paper and cardboard – ive never got that one – they are both made from wood after all!
i think if they made the system less complicated more people would recycle
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its like its been designed by a commitee to suit them not us, to be deliberately as confusing and complicated as possible
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its typical public sector to design a system to suit their needs not ours – we are being robbed – we pay so much and yet they dont give us a service that suits us – its all too onerous for me, lets bring back weekly bin day and have a clear out of beurocrats at the council and get them all sweeping the streets instead – of course all this comes from brussels you know, if we got out of the EU we neednt bother with all this green wash
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Tell you what why don’t we go back to emptying our chamber pots out the window too so we can be inkeeping with our medieval traditions in the town?
I can’t believe that with all the things going on in the world that such small minded people get in such a strop over something so small as a collection of cardboard. These people should find something more productive to do with their time!!
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Exactly its all about the Councils needs and not about the customers, you need a degree in waste management just to understand the leaflets, let alone what goes in what box
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its only a bin, so what they made a mistake with the leaflet, get over it, as people have said cardboard is not a problem atleast it wont go off like food and stuff
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we will have a conservative government and weekly bin collections again soon, so dont worry people, this eu experiment will soon be over
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well said burrows, it should be privatised because the public sector could not organise a drinking session in a brewery
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ACTUALLY…i think the waste services are actually pretty good where i live, i just wish they’d collect plastic, but apparently even thats on the cards in a couple of years, so better late than never, well done all concerned
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