Why fortnightly bin collections are just rubbish… food for thought! (From The Argus)
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Why fortnightly bin collections are just rubbish… food for thought!
11:19am Wednesday 22nd June 2011
By Jo Chipchase - Letting off steam »
Rubbish is a subject close to my heart. I’ve covered it previously in this blog, with more than a passing nod towards the rather unsavoury concept of fortnightly refuse collections, which are currently up for discussion at the ‘now greener’ Brighton & Hove Council. I’ve personally experienced the fortnightly refuse collection process ‘Oop North’ in Northumberland, where I discovered that some of the wheelie bins were full to the brim and the bags were bursting at the seams, so to speak.
In my opinion as a householder and resident whose eyes are wide open while wandering the (rather scruffy) streets of Brighton and Hove, I think the city’s refuse collections should be carried out more frequently, not less frequently.
With less frequent collections, bags full of soiled nappies, food scrapings, maggots et al will invariably sit around for longer in yards, back gardens, etc., which is hardly beneficial to public health and is likely to encourage pests and vermin. In hotter weather (not that England gets much that is truly ‘scorchio’), the laying around of insanitary refuse for up to a fortnight will be even nastier than usual.
If food waste is posing a big issue for B&H Council, to the point where it feels compelled to focus more resources on collecting the entire city’s leftovers, perhaps residents could be educated not to waste so much food? I personally hate wasting any food at all. It is my opinion that the public could benefit from greater insight into what exactly it eats, where the food has been sourced, how it was processed, how far it has travelled, what has been done to it to keep it fresh… and how any scraps could be used up in tasty dishes, instead of being chucked in the nearest bin when we are trying to cut our carbon footprint and “save the planet” (man).
No matter what the Council thinks, I believe the family that constantly throws its uneaten Pot Noodle, potato waffle and chicken nugget mess into the bin, with all the wrappings, is unlikely to be convinced that it should recycle more and waste less. An attitude change would surely require an education programme or incentive or some sort. Less frequent bin collections will simply mean that messy, wasteful people are able to leave their mess and waste sitting outside for longer, where it will prove a nuisance to other people who don’t like that sort of thing.
It is my opinion that Brighton and Hove – a city of 250,000 inhabitants - looks dirty most of the time. This is more noticeable when returning B&H from cleaner climes. Why make the layer of dirt worse when people are being encouraged to visit Brighton and Hove in their droves? Sorry to bring up my usual overseas comparison yet again but in Torre del Mar, a Spanish seaside city of 20,000 inhabitants, the public areas are generally spotless and refuse collectors and street cleaners and are visible daily. And its residents (including one of my friends) are paying a helluva lot less than us in terms of ‘council tax’ to live a clean-and-savoury-by-the-sea lifestyle.
I know Brighton has traditionally been popular for a “dirty weekend” but it could all too easily turn into a dirty weekend venue of the wrong nature, what with germs, grimness and grot that fly in the face of progress, as well as encouraging more flies to visit Brighton and make it their happy home.
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Comments(6)
T Wardman
says...
10:39am Thu 23 Jun 11
Reading Martin Palmer's "Dancing to Armageddon" made me realise how tragic is our attitude to climate change; how we make fun of the concept in one breath but are generally too scared to try and deal with any aspect of the problem whatsoever. It's such a huge problem that no single solution will make very much difference at all, but every solution needs to be attempted if we are to try and address the problem as creatures more capable than helpless baboons. That doesn't mean we have to be bossed around by our local Council and made to accept lower standards of, for instance, bin collections. Jo quite rightly says we need some kind of awareness raising programme generally, around the recycling issue and it would be very helpful indeed if Brighton & Hove Council could implement one.
Brightonian in Germany
says...
11:12am Thu 23 Jun 11
T Wardman wrote:I would be quite happy to help the Council get their act together.
Spain may rejoice in more frequent rubbish collections but their public finances seem to be overspent currently. Food waste is unpleasant and while learning how to manage food better wouldn't save the planet (man) it might be another small for us to try and make us more environmentally aware in our daily lives.
Reading Martin Palmer's "Dancing to Armageddon" made me realise how tragic is our attitude to climate change; how we make fun of the concept in one breath but are generally too scared to try and deal with any aspect of the problem whatsoever. It's such a huge problem that no single solution will make very much difference at all, but every solution needs to be attempted if we are to try and address the problem as creatures more capable than helpless baboons. That doesn't mean we have to be bossed around by our local Council and made to accept lower standards of, for instance, bin collections. Jo quite rightly says we need some kind of awareness raising programme generally, around the recycling issue and it would be very helpful indeed if Brighton & Hove Council could implement one.
You raise a good point about food waste. We have apart from normal waste & paper & plastic collections, also a bin for food waste. You can only opt out if you have a compost in the garden. I know it will not help the hungry, but it helps make people aware of just how much is wasted.
Beaver Hunter
says...
12:05am Fri 24 Jun 11
wippasnapper
says...
10:57am Fri 24 Jun 11
T Wardman
says...
3:24pm Sat 25 Jun 11
wippasnapper wrote:Wippasnapper made a good point about pavements in some of our residential streets being upleasant to walk along due to uncollected rubbish and dirty pavements.
Believe it or not city-clean do have a public body made up of public residents of B&H to bring new ways of waist management to the city the thing is do the management of city-clean take on bard tried and tested and failed ideas and is a two weekly collection good for B&H being most residents now have green wheelie bins that can only take two black sacks and where I live we have two large green wheelie bins for 6 flats these bins can take up to 4 to 6 black sacks depending on the block of the sack and in and around B&H you will see the big black bins that litter the roads and are use’ll bulging with rubbish after one week and dote forget the seagulls that take grate prided in splitting bags open and sprawling rubbish all over the road witch city-clean dote seem to recognize as a health issues, and believe it or not B&H used to have a night sweep team that cleaned up the city at night but city-clean dispended so now the early riser has to make there way through rubbish to get to work the city is only as clean as the company that cleans it so maybe we should change cityclean to dirty-city-clean.
Would there ever be an opportunity for residents to question reps from Cityclean and find out how many lorries they have, how many crews they employ and how that tallies with the amount of rubbish collecting and street cleaning they are paid to carry out? I know the Council are obliged to provide details of their accounts. Do they also give details of how much waste Cityclean are contracted to carry out, and do Cityclean give some account of how much clearance their lorries are supposed to carry out in a week, and how much they charge the Council for this?
"I told you we should have recycled that half-eaten Pot Noodle!"
Brightonian in Germany says...
8:03am Thu 23 Jun 11
England should get away from the plastic bag culture, it could never be clean way of collecting rubbish.
Where there is a will, there is a way.
Everytime I return to Brighton I find the refuse situation rather off putting & in want of a major rethink.