News

When news of the changes to the household recycling collections first arrived on my doormat I had several immediate reactions:

• I was absolutely disgusted that, after a long trial of the red bags for plastics and cardboard, the council hadn't had the courtesy, or indeed the sense, to ask the households taking part in the trial for their views as they had said they would at the start.
• I was also disgusted that the council hadn't had the courtesy to signal the forthcoming changes with a decent notice period, instead leaving it so late that recycling had to be retrieved from the red bags to put in the boxes.
• I was pleased at the switch away from the kerbside sorting that had been used with the green boxes as it was noisy, slow, caused traffic disruption, left a trail of rubbish behind and it was also annoying seeing metal and glass often going into the same bin when I had taken the trouble to try and keep the two as separate as possible in the box to make things easier. However I did have reservations in that kerbside sorting was always said to be the 'greener' option in the past (I did query this with the council amongst other things but it wasn't addressed in the reply).
• I was pleased to see the back of the red plastic bags but was concerned that the boxes wouldn't be quite big enough even with less materials now being accepted for recycling.
• I was absolutely baffled by the decision to supply the blue boxes without lids given they were to hold paper and cardboard which wouldn't react too kindly to wind or rain. The council tried to claim that the idea was to use the lids from the green boxes as it didn't matter if plastics, glass and metals got wet but this seemed like a desperate attempt to save face as the publicity materials all showed open blue boxes and any additional blue boxes were also initially being supplied without lids. I can't imagine I was the only one to quickly point out these facts to the council and to remind them that the contents of the green boxes were also vulnerable to wind and that the lids were also required to allow the boxes to be stacked. They also had to consider that boxes with lids look a whole lot nicer and that there were privacy issues to consider as well.

So several months on, how are things progressing?

• The council quickly started supplying lids with any additional blue boxes and now make a point of saying they will supply extra lids.
• As expected, the green and blue boxes aren't quite big enough for a fortnightly collection and every so often two of one colour, or of both, are required.
• The major concern is over the recycling of clothes, shoes and textiles. These are supposed to be placed in the blue box and the council website asks for them to be kept clean and dry (making the lack of lids on the blue boxes ever more laughable). The obvious thing to do is to place them in a separate plastic carrier bag as used to be done with the green box collection, and as the council ask to be done with any materials that would not fit in the boxes. Previously these materials were placed in the cab of the collection vehicle. So where do they end up now? Well they are supposed to end up in a separate compartment in the collection vehicle but after one collection I found them dumped in my wheelie bin. The council did not answer my query as to why. I can fully understand why this might happen as a single person has to drag two very large wheelie bins which he fills from the individual blue and green boxes. He doesn't seem to have anywhere to separate out the clothes etc, especially if they aren't separately bagged. I now have to assume that these materials are not in fact being recycled at all and make my own arrangements.

It still seems to me that the ideal arrangement for householders would be to have either a separate wheelie bin for all recyclables, or to use the system that works well in other areas (e.g. London Borough of Enfield) where there is an easily portable caddy style bin for all recyclables and a weekly collection. The council dismiss the idea of a wheelie bin out of hand claiming that not everyone has room to put out another wheelie bin. This seems a weak argument as the footprint of just one of the recycling boxes is pretty similar to a wheelie bin and unless you stack them you actually need more room for the two or more boxes (and of course boxes without lids can't be stacked very well).