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News and Comment March 2019

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30 March (Part 2) - Now it is four bins to clutter your garden

The second part of the Places Overview and Scrutiny meeting was devoted to all things rubbish.

Didsbury Children There was an overlong session on how the recycling message was being spread via school children, a technique which probably has merit. It has certainly worked for left wing school teachers who set out to indoctrinate various aspects of political correctness. Retaliation perhaps for my days at grammar school when all the teachers came out as Tories in 1959, but that is enough digression for one blog.

As you have been told so many times before, Bexley has taken a leading role in pushing upwards its recycling rates. In most recent years it has been the highest in London although the figures took a bit of a knock when residents were asked to separate food and garden waste, save £440,000 a year by so doing, and be charged extra for their efforts. The brown bin tax.

As a one time supporter of the Community Charge I am probably on shaky ground if I criticise the policy but once again Bexley Council was intent on deceiving the general population. Not a whisper about how the service became cheaper to operate, only the implication that it wasn’t, hence the charge.

All policies need to be reviewed occasionally and Bexley Council believes it can save another £450,000 a year by moving all waste collections to a two weekly cycle. The widely disliked plastic boxes are to be replaced by two wheelie bins. Green with a blue lid for paper and cardboard and green with a white lid for plastic, glass, cans and cartons. If it is a service cut, and moving to two weekly collections may well be regarded as one, it is nevertheless relatively painless - unlike the bin tax in 2015.


TweetThe standard arrangement will be a 180 litre bin for paper and a 240 litre bin for the plastic and stuff. Where that may not be enough space, or perhaps too much, alternatives may be chosen. 140, 180 or 240 litres are available with both lid colours.

I shall order small ones and with any luck be able to get them into the roof space where they can join the three black boxes that went up there ten years ago. I don’t suppose I am alone in having no free space for more ugly wheelie bins in my front garden.

The three bin sizes will be on show in the Broadway on 25th, 26th and 27th of April and you will be able to order your preferred size at www.bexley.gov.uk/request-your-bin-size but not yet, it will be a week or so before the web page goes on line. If you need a bigger paper bin or a non-standard plastics bin (either bigger or smaller) be sure to place your order before the end of May because Bexley Council’s flexibility does not extend to changing the bin size later.

There is no point in restating what is in the leaflet when you can read it for yourself.

Note: If you wonder how I get away without ever having used the three waste boxes, the answer is a compost bin kindly provided to me at a very low price by Bexley Council when it was under Labour and a ‘roadside’ communal collection point just 20 seconds walk away.

 

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