Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Trying to request a small wheelie bin for recycling
Following the flyers informing us of the new waste collection regime, I wrote to Veolia requesting a small recycling wheelie bin, rather than the mammoth 240L ones. I've just received this reply:
Thank you for your enquiry regarding your preference for a 120 litre recycling wheelie bin. We fully appreciate that residents have differing requirements and are more than happy to accommodate such requirements subject to completing a home visit to ensure that we can rule out the possibility of a 240 litre wheelie bin.
I can confirm that I have now booked a general enquiry and a site visit will be carried out in due course. Can you kindly email us your telephone number so that we can arrange a visit for you please? [emphasis mine]
Why on earth should it matter how big my front yard is? I recycle what I can, I don't generate much waste, and so a 120L bin is plenty big enough, so why should someone have to come round to my house to tell me that my garden is big enough for a large bin therefore that's what I should have? Why do I need arrange to be in for someone to take a look?
I've responded to say something similar and I'll feed back here when I get a response. Has anyone else tried this yet?
Tags for Forum Posts: fortnightly waste collections, new recycling bins, rubbish, veolia, waste collection
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Hugh on
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I just called to request a smaller bin. Same drill - they take the info then explained that a visit is required.
The call centre operator was unable to explain why a visit is required, so I spoke with the call centre supervisor and after persistent questioning found out the following:
1. Any household with just 1 or 2 people should be able to get a small bin without a visit. The call centre supervisor told me he will make sure the call centre operators are made aware of this.
2. Visits will normally be carried out on the day before your rubbish collection and include a visual inspection of your rubbish. They're looking at the current levels of your recyclable vs non-recyclable rubbish. There is no precise formula, but it seems that if you're not currently doing any recycling, or just a little, they'll call for a chat to make you aware of what you can now recycle. I'm not clear on precisely when they'll refuse a new bin. It'll be interesting to see how it develops.
Veolia were able to guarantee that your rubbish will not be hand inspected, i.e. no rooting around or opening of bags.
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Permalink Reply by Madeline on
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I saw the clipboard man coming round last week inspecting all the frontages (you couldn't call them gardens) in our road and writing his notes down. This was the day after the bin collection.
But what he made of my place I don't know. I've got my small motorbike parked there and there's just enough room for the large wheelie bin to be wheeled by and my smaller bin parked behind it. The new bin won't fit at all. I hope they haven't decided that I should park my (vulnerable) bike out on the road just to suit their idea to have a huge bin there and besides, I don't want to be looking at the view of ugly wheelie bins from my window.
Mine is also a shared property and I'm also worried that the other household will not use the bins properly. They're the type of people that given boxes to dispose of will put them out together, not squashed or inside one another, but side by side thus taking up much more room than need be.
As it stands at the moment (and with a little bit of education for my neighbours) I think we could get by with just the two bins of the sizes we have now. I'd have to know exactly what it is that they're throwing out but I think we could share the bins. Which size bin for what would have to be worked out by what we both throw out.
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Permalink Reply by Maddy on
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Well, at least this makes some sense - i.e. looking at the amount of rubbish/recycling we put out, rather than size of front garden.
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Permalink Reply by Lucy Fielding on
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I had a similar conversation when requesting green waste sacks instead of a another wheelie bin. We don't have the room anyway but we have always recycled and so being told by a draconian council that we now have to do so as if it's THEIR idea doesn't actually make any difference to us. The waste sacks would hep us out because we could line our kitchen bin with them and just take them downstairs on bin day. We will still be generating the same amount of recycling waste and don't need a huge new wheelie bin. It's insulting and degrading to be treated as if we are irresponsible, stupid or dishonest. And it's a huge waste of taxpayers money to employ people to come round and check up on us. Are they going to re-imburse lost wages for having to wait in for them?
The council claim this is to help with the environment and save money but vast amounts of CO2 will be produced to make every new wheelie bin and they must be costing the council to buy so you would think they would try to ensure that people use as few bins as possible. Makes you wonder why they are insisting that we all have a huge 230 l bin?
Londoners will soon be drowning in a sea of grey plastic that will eventually become landfill and take thousands of years to decompose. It doesn't make sense and is a horrible legacy for future generations.
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I made a similar request last week. I don't particularly want my front garden graced with an over-sized wheelie bin. I feared a fait accompli (ie a 240 litre bin) if I agreed to a home visit, so I've opted to just use recycling sacks instead and we'll continue to use the old green bins indoors in between collections. We're a 2 person household and produce enough land-fill waste in a week to fit in about a quarter of the current grey wheelie bin but the green recycling bin is always full. And Veolia are NOT having my garden/kitchen waste. I make my own compost!
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Hi Kate,
How did you stop them from delivering the wheelie bin to your door? And are you being supplied with recycling sacks? I got the impression that it was already a fait accompli and that we are having to take delivery of these huge wheelie bins whether we like them or not. When I called to say I wanted sacks they just gave me a job number but I have no idea what that meant.
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Hi Lucy
I've requested sacks instead, in my email to Veolia, but if they do deliver a large wheelie bin I'll take it straight down to the recycling centre in Hornsey!
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Permalink Reply by Michael Anderson on
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Feel the same here. A mass march of bins up to the Civic Centre?
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It's ironic really that this is supposed to help the environment and yet the bins themselves are creating a potentially massive problem for the environment. They are not compostable, they look incredibly ugly and make local areas look cheap and trashy which could have the negative effect of people giving up and not caring about their environment or where they live. It is creating resentment because it is being forced upon people rather than being discussed which would allow us to express our creativity and make alternative environmentally friendly suggestions.
For a start how about people being given a biodegradeable compost bin with worms instead of a huge wheelie bin? You can even get small ones for indoors! Or be given the choice of a wheelie bin or compost bin? Even if you don't have a garden you could use it for window boxes or plant post. You could have little holes cut out of it and have herbs growing so it would be a living structure. Okay it's not a very refined idea but I;m sure there must be a more environmentally friendly way to recycle than these horrid wheelie bins.
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