24 September - Work-shy bin men. Useless officialdom part 4
Possibly the non-collection of rubbish in my street is too trivial to report here;
on the other hand problems with rubbish collection seem to be widespread across the borough.
A new problem (to me) is that the collectors are too idle to reach into the
bin when a householder has recycled so successfully that the small amount that
remains in the green bin is out of arms’ reach.
A request for advice made six weeks ago
produced an unintelligible response from Serge Poumo and when a neighbour fell
foul of the same laziness a month ago I repeated my enquiry. Serge Puomo did not
bother to reply. As a direct result of that non-collection the bin became
overfull and so wasn’t emptied at all two weeks ago. Then the foxes got busy and
spread the rubbish around.
There is a language problem at the house in question. It is used by a succession
of people from Nigeria who stay for a couple of weeks, occasionally longer and
are then replaced by someone else. All perfectly decent people so far as one can
judge but they do not understand a system that gives them six different bins. If they can
be persuaded to use them at all the colour coding is ignored. Last year the
occupant merely threw all their rubbish out the door in the general direction of
the front garden until a small mountain of rubbish built up. The useless Serge Poumo
failed to solve that problem too and it fell to neighbours to get it taken
to the dump. Something similar has had to be done to solve the latest problem
too. The contents of the overflowing bins was redistributed among other nearby
bins. Due to the amount left behind following a month of neglect by Bexley
council it is quite possible that those doing the redistribution weren’t able to
observe all the usual rules relating to what goes where, but at least the bins
are all empty now. Serge Poumo, Bexley’s useless Recycling Advisor, is slowly
turning me from being an enthusiastic recycler into someone who rather enjoys
the thought that a group of people, fed up with having rubbish blown along the
street and into their gardens should fool the collectors into taking it away -
even if this week’s load is going to prove to be more contaminated than usual.
Speaking of useless publicly funded parasites brings me to the subject of Will
Tuckley, the council’s obscenely over-paid and utterly useless C.E.O. I hear a
group of Bexley residents has asked that his salary of around a quarter of a
million pounds a year be reduced to something close to that of the Prime
Minister’s £143,000 a year and failing that that his post be abolished
altogether. Would anyone notice his absence? The question should be, according to my informant,
on the Agenda at the council’s next meeting.
Bin Diary
13 August - Green bin put out with very little rubbish in it.
Not collected. Told council that bins with very little in them were not being emptied
as it is a long reach for their men and asked how they might be persuaded to reach in
and do their job. Serge Poumo, Waste and Recycling Advisor replied as
follows… “Thank you for contacting our department. Your property is on Enhanced
Recycling Services and your green bin should be emptied on a fortnightly basis.
As you are not really producing a lot of waste, we do not see a reason for why
your collection frequency should be changed.”
27 August - Green bin again left unemptied because there was not much in it and
reaching in is too much bother for collectors. Repeated enquiry to council. It
was acknowledged but Serge Poumo lacks the intelligence to find an answer and prefers to remain silent.
10 September - Bin slightly overfull due to no rubbish collected in previous
weeks. Bin men refuse to empty it. Foxes redistribute it.
23 September - Various people decide enough is enough and find spare capacity in
other householders’ bins both green and brown, and fill them with the
uncollected rubbish arranging the contents so that any misplaced rubbish is not visible.
24 September - All bins emptied. Serge Poumo the so called but totally
ineffective Waste and Recycling Advisor who has no advice at all for those who
are doing their best to recycle encourages them to dump their rubbish where they
can. If he cannot give advice what is he for? Presumably just another council parasite wasting our money.