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Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!

'NO' to Ending free bulky waste collections and closing the recycling centre

Haringey's current budget proposals will see the end of free bulky and green waste collections and the closure of one of the recycling centres.

These changes are likely to spell real trouble in this borough. It will inevitably lead to a significant increase in dumping with the poorest areas being hardest hit.

Research has shown that introducing a charge can lead to a drop in demand for collections of 50-75% on previous levels. Fly-tipping will increase as a result.

An alternative approach to introducing a collection charge would be to limit or reduce the number of items accepted for free, and/or the number of free collections allowed per year.

An alternative to closing the recycling centre would be to control who uses the centre and make a small charge as appropriate.

The cabinet meets to decide on this issue in two weeks' time. Whilst the consultation is now closed you can still email the cabinet member responsible (peray.ahmet@haringey.gov.uk) and copy your councillor.

Budget proposals: http://www.haringey.gov.uk/local-democracy/policies-and-strategies/...

Survey (CLOSED 22 JAN): http://www.haringey.gov.uk/survey/budget-2017-18

Tags for Forum Posts: rubbish, waste collection, waste collection charges

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Especially since the Council continues to spend money on propaganda... Haringey People and, in my neck of the woods, a special Tottenham People. These publications do not really serve any useful, pratical purpose other than blowing the Council's trumpet and p^ss^ng us off. They also just ADD to the amount of stuff that goes into the recycling bin!!!

Antoinette, it was on the Haringey website, on the budget proposals page headed 'A clean and safe borough' (oh, the irony!!)

http://www.haringey.gov.uk/local-democracy/policies-and-strategies/...

and see p.2 of the attached doc from that page, which says:

Charging for Garden Waste: Stopping the current free weekly universal green waste collection service and reverting to a weekly opt in charged green waste collection service. The charge would be set at £75 per annum.

There is no mention of the food waste, which is currently collected together with green waste, as Wood Greener has mentioned. I hope that isn't stopping as well. Part of the justification given for introducing fortnightly residual waste (black bin) collections was because they were collecting the stinky food waste weekly. If they go back on this, will they reintroduce weekly bin collections. I doubt it.

K

Attachments:
Thanks for digging that info out. I think it's safe to say weekly bin collections won't be coming back whatever the plans might be for food waste. Speaking personally, I don't think I'll opt in at £75pa. It's seems such a retrograde step for me to put the grass cutting in the bin though.

I've just had an email from Peray Ahmet confirming that there will be no change to the weekly food waste collections, which will continue. So that's something I suppose. She also said:

Your concerns re green waste have been noted and as is the case with all of these proposals we will be monitoring the impacts very closely. There will be a extensive communication campaign to try and mitigate against some of the potential risks, including contamination.

I appreciate the fact that at least she actually responds to emails, I haven't had any response from any of my own councillors in West Green, which is disappointing, but sadly not unusual.

Katie

Well that is some small consolation as you say. So which Councillors are they out of interest that aren't even bothering to answer your emails....name and shame

Over 5mil to collect fly tip trash in Haringey and if the collection is being done by the same veloia company then the economies of small mean they should be making a hefty profit utilising exisiting vehicle and resources. What should be looked into is what makes it cost so much. Given fly tipping must be a fraction of the cost compared to refuse collection from every building. I on paper could buy 20 brand new refuse trucks, 20 full time drivers, 3 full time office staff on very decent salaries, cost of vehicle, insurance, vehicle fuel, premises, vehicles repair and maintenance cost and other expences and I would still be under 2mil in setup cost with 20 trucks constantly on the go every day. The business of fly-tipping collection and disposal is not complex and the process is simple. I would like to see the breakdown of why it cost over 5mil.

Your figures are a bit suspect, Ian. One example - each truck would need at least one driver and one mate, more likely two. You couldn't expect a driver on his own to handle a rain-soaked mattress or a pile of builder's rubble.

Even with a drivers mate at a generous £20,000 per year each x 20 the setup cost would still be below 2mil and that is with generous allocations e.g. truck £50,000. In reality Veolia already has the trucks and people so not setup cost and I am sure they don't have 20 dedicated trucks driving around all day dealing with just fly-tipping. Existing resources are being used or maybe even subcontracted out but at over 5mil as quoted in the letter I am responding to it seems like a lot of profit is being made on fly-tipping clearance. I have no issue with a private company making money/profit only that the buyer (council) should have a clear understanding of the price of butter and look to get a good deal rather than having a single company dealing with everything at a none competitive price.

You don't seem to appreciate that these contracts are the subject of extremely detailed specifications of work and tendering procedures.  It is only a single company that can offer a competitive rate; smaller outfits cannot offer the economies of scale that larger providers can.  That is why they win the contracts in the first place.

I fully understand contracts being so called subject to extreme detail. I am sure you also understand that smaller companies can usually offer man power at lower rates than bigger companies because of lower overheads and a more nibble agile service. The council may well want a single company for simplification but is it the best deal. From the figures quoted for fly tipping collection and the fact (economies scale), reusing same trucks and personel, this contractor may be making more profit from fly tipping collection than anything else. What we need to know is the average bulk of a typical fly tipping collection, how many collections in a year and we can work out the cost of each collection. total millions divided by number of collection basic maths. I would like to believe the council should be the ones reporting fly tipping instances to the contractor therefore they should have the numbers and this also prevents cheating if the contractors took reports directly from the public. I don't subscribe to there are sensible people behind the scenes doing a fantastic job and we just need to trust what we are told. This is about transparency and the public getting to ask questions and know how this large amount of money is broken down. These big ticket items is where big bucks can be saved and given fly tipping is random and not a scheduled service there is no reason preventing smaller operators from working within this space and even halfing this annual cost. But given the council is most likely less than innovative then going for a one hat fits all is the safe expensive route.

You're just plain wrong about smaller companie's are cheaper than big ones. Where's your actual evidence to that effect? The truth is work goes to the cheapest bidder whatever their size.

no the truth is that small companies in more examples in general in business are cheaper than larger companies. Large scale manufacturing is where larger companies can produce a cheaper product based on scale but this is not the norm. You are not focusing on the most important questions I asked. How many collections, what is the cost, is contract based on a fixed cost or varying cost dependent on amount of collections, how is reporting of fly tipping instances managed.

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