27 November - Do what we say, not what we do
Bexley has had a reasonably good refuse collection service for the past ten
years. I don’t think they have fined any residents for minor transgressions of
petty rules but they do seem to encourage fly tipping. Not emptying a bin because
the lid isn’t totally down is just stupid. By the time of the next collection
there will be an even greater accumulation so the rubbish can either go into a neighbour’s bin or
into the woods. What else is a resident supposed to do?
I personally find the variable bin capacities to be unfair. At my address
240 litres of capacity per person is provided. Next door they have only 48 and
beyond that there is 480 litres. I allow my neighbour to use my spare capacity
and sometimes find it filled with stuff that should have been recycled - not to
mention the maggots in summer.
Maybe the 480 litre man has the right idea, he won’t share his bins.
Refuse collection is probably the most important service offered by any council,
it affects everyone, so I expected to go to this evening’s public meeting on the subject.
Having looked at the Agenda I think I have better things to do. Discussion of
all the interesting stuff will be held in secret, the public excluded.
All we know about what Bexley Council is preparing to inflict on us is that the
three plastic boxes are likely to be replaced by two more wheelie bins, there
will be some mixing of materials that used to be separated and the real rubbish
will be collected at three weekly intervals. The details were
provided in a blog and
its appendix last month.
There is
an updated version which reveals that the aim is to save almost one and a half million pounds a year.
Two
years ago Bexley introduced a charge for collection of garden waste, a bin
tax. By taking advantage of discount schemes in three successive years I have
paid £27, £30 and a couple of months ago £33. The plan is to increase the charge
to £38. An increase of 41%. So Bexley Council’s bin tax has inevitably become a stealth tax.
Bexley Council’s justification is not that the service is operating at a loss
but that their charge is lower than some other Councils. Bexley Council is
hoping that you will have forgotten that separating garden waste from food waste
saved them £440,000 a year and on top of that they collected
tens of thousands of £33s.
I think that if the charge goes up to £38 I will not renew next September
because there is little garden waste during the winter. Then if I rejoin in
April I will have effectively saved around £20, enough to pay the increased
charge for another four years. Either that or buy an incinerator.
On a related subject, Bexley Council is aiming to get us to reduce plastic
waste. Yesterday Councillor Craske issued
another of his Press Releases. He was
trumpeting the provision of a water fountain in Broadway. Ironically it was
Councillor Craske who authorised the destruction of the water fountain that used to be at the same site.
Maybe he should address the waste of plastic at Council meetings.
On 17th October ten people at a Council meeting somehow managed to share 14
plastic bottles and a similar number of single use plastic cups.
The scene was
shown here on 18th October and the picture nicked for use on
Twitter, I personally do not mind but that particular photo is copyright Hugh
Neal of Maggot Sandwich fame and it was used here with his permission.