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Message
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Cllr David Alston
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Tuesday 25 May 2010 11:04:11 am
To what extent could you cope with moving to fortnightly collections of non-recyclable waste (green wheelie bin)? [Topic now closed]
By increasing the amount we recycle, we reduce the amount of waste which goes to landfill. Disposing of waste in a landfill site costs around £100 / tonne, of which £48 is landfill tax. We currently spend over £5 million on residual waste collection, and alternate weekly collections could save around £0.5 million.
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Heather Urquhart
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Wednesday 26 May 2010 11:59:20 am
Non-recyclable waste
I think moving to a fortnightly collection is a very sound and sensible suggestion. As well as saving council money, it will also encourage those who don't already recycle to recycle more. I can't see how anyone loses out on this particular deal. I take it food premises would still enjoy a weekly collection though?
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John Boocock
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Wednesday 26 May 2010 1:15:15 pm
More local recycling points
Local collections could be reduced if waste generation is reduced by a better spread of local recycling points for metal, glass, plastic and paper. Our community of over 175 households still faces a two mile drive to the nearest bottle bank so it all goes into the bins. Reuse of garden waste by better use of shredding and composting would reduce the need for the brown bin to emptied even fortnightly. What is the cost of a community shredder against the cost of 13 visits by a great big yellow lorry? The unused visits could be used to deal with the recyclates whilst the land fill savings would be seen on the balance sheet.
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Ann Carmichael
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Wednesday 26 May 2010 10:12:10 pm
Fortnightly collections
I have no problem with fortnightly collections, Dingwall is well served with a good recycling centre and by recycling plastics, glass, tins, paper, cardboard and green waste my bin is are never full .
Ann Carmichael
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Michelle Douglas
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Thursday 27 May 2010 8:28:46 am
Fortnightly Collections
Fortnightly collections would not be a problem for our household (two adults and a toddler) but those in larger households may struggle with this. Also if the council wishes householders to recycle more they could do more to assist with this. For example people living in rural areas may have a substantial drive to recycling points/centres and those in deprived areas may be nearer to recycling points/centres but not have access to transport to take items there. It's easy to say those without transport could walk to recycle but actually getting them to do this is another matter! We already collect plastic, glass and used batteries at home to take for recycling (as well as the tins/paper and garden waste bins the council provide). We would like to also collect cardboard but do not have space for another box. If the council offered a recycling pick-up of a wider range of items such as these, more people would be inclined to keep them rather than bin them and I think this is the only way fortnightly pickups will be succesful.
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Ian Paterson
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Thursday 27 May 2010 11:12:37 am
Fortnightly collections
We are a household of only 2 adults and 1 child so a fortnightly collection is easily achievable. Our rural community is served by GREAN who pick up our recyclable waste weekly- a brilliant service. We could probably manage a fortnightly service of that too. Couldn't garden waste be chipped/composted at the local refuse/recycling centre and turned into useable compost for either mulching council beds (saving time on weeding) or given away or sold to local gardeners?
col
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Liz V
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Thursday 27 May 2010 10:05:21 pm
Waste collection
Alternate weekly collections are a move in the right direction; particularly if more items were re-cycled. To encourage less non-recyclable waste half size bins could be offered to smaller households when they need replacing.
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M Gowans
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Thursday 27 May 2010 11:58:03 pm
Brown bins underused
On my street, hardly anyone uses their brown bins. I would suggest that this service could be cut back or suspended over the winter unless it could be upgraded to accept food waste as well as garden waste. I lived in Nova Scotia where this was done and it really helped to reduce non-recyclable waste. That is the only way I would manage a fortnightly green bin collection. In addition, the blue boxes are impossible to open and close and would be a nightmare for anyone with arthritis. Better quality blue bins would result in more people using them.
At the moment that we persuade a child, any child, to cross that threshold, that magic threshold into a library, we change their lives forever, for the better.
- Barack Obama
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Michelle Douglas
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Friday 28 May 2010 8:14:41 am
Recycle Bins
I agree with M Gowans on two points mentioned - (1) Brown bins (green waste) collections in winter are almost pointless and (2) the blue boxes (tins/paper) are of very low quality. The lid of ours quickly broke meaning it could not be fastened properly to the box. Because of this it then blew away onto the road, was run over by a car and further damaged. Now our paper is often wet and sticks to the inside of the box and there is usually paper left in it after it has been emptied.
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Guy Newson
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Friday 28 May 2010 12:55:29 pm
Fortnightly collections
We run a household with only two adults and recycle a lot of waste and also burn paper and cardboard as household heating. We only put our rubbish out every 3 weeks or longer and even then the bin is less than half full; we mainly put it out to be empty to avoid it getting too smelly. Some households seem to put out over stuffed bins every week. So I would guess if you go to two weekly collections some households may need a second bin.
Guy of Murkle
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Carol Fraser
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Saturday 29 May 2010 2:58:40 pm
Fortnightly Collections
Seems to me that Highland Council want it all ways. They expect us to accept a cut from weekly collections to fortnightly but as yet I have seen no mention of a cut in Council Tax to make up for this. OR do they expect to do less for the same money?
Caley
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Mandy Thomson
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Saturday 29 May 2010 6:40:50 pm
Fortnighly collections
As we only have two adults living in our household we could easily cope with a two weekly collection. I note the comments about brown bins and blue boxes for paper collections. We live in an area where there are no brown bins or blue boxes for paper collections but instead have a blue recycle bin which is the same size as the green wheelie bin. Do the Council have any plans to roll these out to all areas of Highland? Before we had this bin we could not have managed with a two weekly collection but due to our new recycling bin we could quite happily live with a collection every three weeks. Perhaps to cut down further on household waste a promotion of free compost bins for a period of time would encourage those who wished to compost to do so without having to pay a minimum of £8 to buy a compost bin.
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Rosemarie Gates
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Monday 31 May 2010 1:31:32 pm
Waste collection
this is a difficult one because I would have no problem with a fortnightly waste collection whereas I know another similar sized family struggles with once a week.Recycling: Incentives? They work on some people. Others only notice penalties. The suggestion that some households should be issued with two bins is not practical, surely? Where I live we have no kerbside recycling, even though we are served by bin lorries from Dingwall. Now those communities nearby were informed they wouldn't have kerbside recycling because the Gairloch depot can't handle it. I think we need to re-think strategies for the west coast because one size really doesn't fit all - we need a more local solution.
RhG
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Debbie Irvine
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Monday 31 May 2010 9:07:51 pm
Fortnightly collections
We are a household of 3 children and 2 adults. We could easily have our bin collected fortnightly as we recycle as much as possible via the blue bin, brown bin and the Janetstown facility. I think moving to fortnightly collections is an easy and relatively painless saving to make for the council.
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D MacLeod
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Tuesday 01 June 2010 11:18:02 am
Fortnightly waste collections
Due to the fact that there are only two people in our household we could cope with fortnightly collections as we currently recycle a significant amount of our waste. We have to do this ourselves as there are currently no kerbside recycling facilities in our area.
My concern is that people who are less able to transport waste to recycling facilities, i.e vulnerable groups such as the elderly, will be seriously inconvenienced by this. No fortnightly collections should be implemented until kerbside recycling is introduced.
Another serious concern is an increase in fly tipping in an area largely dependent on tourism.
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Jennifer Maxwell
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Tuesday 01 June 2010 6:19:41 pm
Fortnightly waste collection
I initially thought this was a brilliant idea - after all, if we think carefully about the unnecessary packaging of what we buy (and lobby supermarkets or purchase locally but that's another matter) and re-cycle as much as we can, we should not need a weekly lift.
However, I live on a mile-long unadopted road with around 15 houses and no waste collection service at our houses - we all take our non-recyclable waste to large roll-top bins at the main road. We have no brown bins or blue bins either. (Nor street lights for that matter!) We only have about one large black bag of non-recyclable rubbish per week, but I have noticed recyclable stuff in the bins from time to time, and they overflow too, so it would take a shift in attitude. We have to dispose of our garden waste by other means and take our recyclable waste to the dump or recycling point.
I still think fortnightly would work if we make the effort. After all it is in everyone's interest that we share the burden of service cuts. (And don't moan about the council tax!)
Jennifer Maxwell
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Carol Fraser
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Tuesday 01 June 2010 9:15:43 pm
"Moan about Council Tax...
In response to Jennifer Maxwell. She might be able to afford high levels of Council Tax but being on a low budget (pension) I cannot. It seems to me that Highland Council is asking the Council Tax payers to accept many cuts but where is the headline that states to help to make the Highland budget ends meet they (Councillors) will do their part and take a 5 or a 10% pay cut as the Government Ministers have done? I won't be holding my breath.
Caley
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