12 September (Part 1) - Pay the bin tax and get less service than the refuseniks
My slightly troublesome bin responded positively to careful heat treatment and the plastic hinge has relaxed into a better position. But not everyone is happy.
Suzanne
C makes a good point when she says residents who paid the bin tax should
not have been left without one but some of the complainers on Streetlife appear
to have forgotten about the practicalities.
John Ferry who is paid to lie on behalf of Bexley council may have said that
27,000 orders was significantly above expectations when the truth is that
the council was
banking on getting 30,000 but they would nevertheless have been very silly to have ordered 30,000 bins up front.
In all probability they waited until orders approached 10,000 before putting in
an order and that batch is being distributed now with a second and third due later.
Geographically speaking it isn’t practical to collect the old bins or deliver the new
on an individual coordinated basis, it has to be done street by street.
Where things have gone wrong is the withdrawal of old bins a month before the new service starts.
My own enquiries reveal that it wasn’t just me who
lost the old bin last Saturday,
everyone nearby who had ordered a new one lost theirs too whether their new one was in the first batch
or the last. Those who didn’t pay up still have their old one and benefitting from a normal service. I know
that because I used my non-gardening neighbour’s bin yesterday
and it was both emptied and returned to its normal position.
Why are those who didn’t pay the bin tax getting a better service than those who did?
It would have been far better if the collection of old bins had been deferred
until the end of the month. After all, the new service is not going to start until then.
The distribution arrangements could never be perfectly fair but a council that
was truly ‘Working for you’ would not have arbitrarily left a month gap between
services just because they are not legally obliged to remove garden waste.
That does not apply to food waste but thanks to Bexley’s lack of forethought I
have nowhere to put it. (†) Distribution of the little food only bins has been just
as haphazard as their big brothers’ and I can see no excuse for that. The number
required was known from the outset. In the next road they have them, in mine no one does.
† This is theory rather than practice. I have never found the need to throw food in any bin.
The new one will be stored in the loft where the last one has been for ten years.