LETTER: Rubbish won't simply vanish

We have already seen the fallout from the rushed and ill-conceived change to the recycling centre hours and new charges; fly tipping has gone through the roof in recent times.

We all predicted it would, apart from the council of course. I see ovens, fridges, mattresses and miscellaneous bags of rubbish on the side of country lanes frequently now, whereas before there was none. I don’t agree it is right, but we all knew it would happen nonetheless.

It’s no good saying, well that’s illegal so people aren’t allowed to do that. An environmental hazard and a mess the council only have to clear up anyway. I’m willing to put money on them spending more clearing up fly tipping than any saving on closing the centres early.

So to the bins. Fortnightly is fine, but the bins were reduced in size about ten or so years ago and the idea sold to us on the basis recycling was introduced and weekly collections were here to stay.

As a family we would get an A* for our recycling, so it’s no good Mr Dawe just saying do more. We recycle everything including things that can’t go in the blue bins down to milk bottle tops, coffee capsules, batteries, toothpaste tubes, food waste into compost and have to have lots of little bins going on to achieve this.

We cannot recycle anymore than we do, but we still fill our bin three quarters full every week. Three quarters times two weeks equals 1.5 bins full of rubbish. There is still quite a lot of packaging that can’t be recycled.

What do we do with the half bin full in the second week? The bins are too small. Other councils that do fortnightly collections have provided bigger bins.

What will happen? All the good work the council have done on recycling will be undone. People will contaminate their blue and brown bins collections in order to get rid of the balance of rubbish that won’t fit in their green bin.

Eventually this will reduce the price the council gets for its recycled matter as it will be less valuable and take longer to sort (watch out for council adverts in the CT in 2018 pleading with people to not put certain items in their blue bins that will get ignored). Fly tipping will continue to rise exponentially.

More thought needs to be put into the consequences of such a decision. The rubbish won’t simply vanish or get magically recycled where it can’t be.

If he thinks people will drive their extra rubbish to the part time recycling centres each week he is kidding himself, and why should they have to?

Three options - bigger bins, keep it weekly, or ignore it all, as is the current proposal and a disaster waiting to happen is on the cards.

Jim Payne

Coolham Road, Brooks Green

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