Fresh bid by Swindon Council to avoid a green waste fiasco
8:30am Wednesday 9th January 2013 in Latest News By David Wiles
Coun Fionuala Foley
SWINDON Council is developing an action plan to avoid a repeat of last year’s green waste collection delays – where thousands of green bags were left piled up on the streets.
In September, Coun Fionuala Foley, the cabinet member for Streetsmart and corporate services, apologised to the public after contractor Swindon Commercial Services Ltd struggled to clear a week-long backlog, which filled up its storage capacity at Waterside Park and an off-site storage facility.
The council said there had been a massive increase in the volume of garden waste needing collecting this summer, due to ideal growing conditions and a householders using the kerbside service rather than taking sacks to the Household Recycling Centre themselves.
SCS is paid £6.4m annually for waste collection and a further £2.2m for handling waste at Waterside Park and the operation of the Household Waste Recycling Centre.
There were 79 complaints about green waste collection between January and October 2012, compared to just 38 in the whole of 2011.
Coun Foley said: “Last year’s unusually wet spring and summer created the perfect growing conditions and resulted in a huge volume of green waste, which we did not expect.
“As we have such a great kerbside service we also found many households were leaving out their green waste from large-scale pruning and garden clearances for collection instead of taking it down to the Household Waste Recycling Centre in Cheney Manor, which they would normally do.
“Unlike many councils, we provide a free green waste collection and we want to keep it this way, but we need to ensure we don’t suffer the backlogs we experienced last year.
“This is why we are looking at the service to see if we can make any changes to improve it.
“One message we need to get across to households is for them to keep using the Household Waste Recycling Centre if they are doing major work in their garden that creates a large amount of green waste.”
Coun Jim Grant, the Labour group leader, said: “If the council is going to provide a free green waste collection service and advertise as such, then it needs to be properly resourced to take into account the unpredictable nature of the weather.
“Labour believes this service should be kept, but we would make additional resources available as a contingency to make sure the service is delivered properly, no matter what the weather.
For more information visit the website www.swindon.gov.uk/waste.
Comments(17)
LordAshOfTheBrake
says...
9:10am Wed 9 Jan 13
Davey Gravey
says...
9:58am Wed 9 Jan 13
coppersmith
says...
12:00pm Wed 9 Jan 13
coppersmith
says...
12:00pm Wed 9 Jan 13
EmmBee
says...
12:09pm Wed 9 Jan 13
house on the hill
says...
1:36pm Wed 9 Jan 13
Its not free, we have already paid for it.
Just how green is it with all the cars and vans being used to go to to tip?
Do we really get good value for money from SCS for that amount of money paid?
79 people actually made a formal complaint. There are probably 20 times as many who would have complained if they had felt it would have achieved anything.
Just more political posturing from our self serving councillors. The smug look says it all.
Meldrews Dad
says...
2:15pm Wed 9 Jan 13
Global warming is unproven claptrap and the best excuse politicians have heard for centuries to justify massive tax hikes.
The Real Librarian
says...
2:58pm Wed 9 Jan 13
peatmoor pirate wrote:Yes we do pay, although Its not worth paying the council tax. SBC treat you as if you hadn't anyway.
I love the way these Councillors say they provide free services. They are not free, we pay Council Tax, or some of us do anyway.
We are fully paid up but we still had a bailiff at the door this week, threatening to force his way into our house and steal our stuff.
God bless SBC and their idiots
Bobfm ,
says...
5:13pm Wed 9 Jan 13
Meldrews Dad wrote:Yes and the world is flat
Perhaps the residents are realising that "free" means from your council tax and the word "environmental" means a wonderful excuse to raise taxes.
Global warming is unproven claptrap and the best excuse politicians have heard for centuries to justify massive tax hikes.
TinkeyWinkey
says...
6:51pm Wed 9 Jan 13
I don't begrudge the Bin Men having a couple of days off with their families over Christmas but their bosses know full well that Christmas just generates double the amount of waste, of any kind!!!
Tim Newroman
says...
9:33pm Wed 9 Jan 13
Meldrews Dad wrote:Recent scientific admissions are certainly interesting:
Perhaps the residents are realising that "free" means from your council tax and the word "environmental" means a wonderful excuse to raise taxes.
Global warming is unproven claptrap and the best excuse politicians have heard for centuries to justify massive tax hikes.
is.gd/mYNO88
Seems it doesn't make much difference what humans do, or don't do.
While Global Warming is undoubtedly happening, it's also absolutely the case that it's being used as a means to extort yet more taxes from us through numerous avenues.
What's equally true is that all the money in the world can't stop Global Warming... so it's not only the fact that the subject is used to impose additional taxation, it's that we know the money we're forced to pay doesn't even go towards addressing the issue.
beach1e
says...
7:15am Thu 10 Jan 13
itsamess3
says...
8:58am Thu 10 Jan 13
Tim Newroman
says...
10:41am Thu 10 Jan 13
itsamess3 wrote:That's very true, it's also plain common sense.
Scientifically--it is far wiser not to create the waste in the first instance.
Mind you, scientifically speaking, overpopulation is by far the biggest threat to Gloabal Warming and virtually all of the fundamental problems facing the planet.
Strangely, no politicians - bar the Chinese - seem to want to discuss it. Have as many kids as you like, but make sure you put those Baked Bean cans in the correct plastic box every week.
It's all utter nonsense.
itsamess3
says...
5:44pm Thu 10 Jan 13
Cars are the biggest polluters-despite claims to the contrary. True exhaust emissions have been drastically been reduced by removing a variety of gasses and chemicals to the point where the main output is carbon dioxide.
Simply explained oxygen is drawn in-fuel is introduced to create an explosion to power the engine and emits the carbon.d.--a known cause of global warming.
The only current car system that is truly green being the HFC engines which only emit H2O.
The Chinese one child policy is widely misunderstood as many conditions apply dependent on city or rural living. Legislation was passed to ease restrictions further and i believe recently implemented (unconfirmed).
The chinese are also the biggest nation of recyclers as they recycle just about everything via traders who collect any waste of just about everything from households and pay for it. They do not double and triple pack goods as they take sturdy bags to the shops and containers for the different foods--it works well.
Finally they have no welfare state and pay minute fees for medical care etc.
Prices are not fixed on all but foods as the bargain for the best price.
We need to learn from such nations.
Tim Newroman
says...
6:07pm Thu 10 Jan 13
itsamess3 says...
Cars are the biggest polluters-despite claims to the contrary.
Even if we accept that to be true, and cars are a bigger polluter than all the world's industry combined, it is the increasing population that needs and drives cars.
Without anyone to drive them, cars are not polluting (other than the pollution caused by manufacturing them - and obviously manufacturers would make less of them if the population dropped).
Chinese policy may well be 'misunderstood' - because none of us really have any idea what the specifics of their policies truly are - but they are certainly the first, and only, nation in the modern era to take any steps to address the problem of overpopulation or, at least, put it forefront of the debate.
And, with regards to cars, we'll only stop using the petrol ones once oil runs out.
peatmoor pirate says...
8:35am Wed 9 Jan 13