Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Bi-Weekly bin collections coming to Harringay
With bi weekly rubbish collections coming our way this summer, Liberal Democrat politicians in parts of the borough where it's already operating have been making it known that they strongly oppose fortnightly waste collections and have called for an urgent review of the changes to the service.
But the Labour-led council says it has no plans to review the bin collections and claim that most people in the borough have responded positively to the changes.
The move, which is expected to save the council £900,000 per year, aims to encourage more people to recycle. Garden and food waste is still collected weekly.
The changes, which include replacing small green recycling boxes with large wheelie bins, were introduced to the west of the borough at the beginning of March.
Tags for Forum Posts: fortnightly waste collections, new recycling bins, rubbish, veolia, waste collection
Replies to This Discussion
-
Permalink Reply by Liz on
-
All the points made here are entirely valid, there really is nothing to disagree with in any of the points that Craig, Joe or JJB make. I assume that fundamentally none of you are opposed to the idea of increasing our recycling rate, bearing in mind that countries such as Belgium, Germany, Austria, Denmark, and Sweden all send less than 3% of waste to landfill, as opposed to the UK's 48%, it should be clear that we must do much, much better.
As I've said, I have grave concerns that Veolia are simply not up to the job they have been contracted to do, as so far their ability to supply bins, explain the changes to all and focus on problem areas is sadly lacking. One of the reasons is that I strongly suspect they are trying to do everything with too few staff. I am also not defending the Labour group on this, they introduced an all singing, all dancing new company to the borough, but talking to sweepers, I'm not sure they are doing the quality control to the highest possible standards to ensure that Veolia are not cutting corners and taking liberties with their staff in order to improve what is laughably called 'efficiency' but often seems to mean as little as you can get away with on as little money as you're prepared to spend. I sense that is what is happening here and I would appreciate the opposition scrutinising the workings of this private company very carefully.
So if the thrust of the campaign was as Craig outlines then I would think that the bin posing councillors of Hornsey would be doing their job, but the bottom line of the campaign that we should abandon the whole project until people are 'ready' is the irresponsible bit. When will people be 'ready'? Who is to judge? Must we really wait until the hardcore who 'don't care' can be brought into line...that's a lot more incineration and dangerous fumes generated while we wait for them to catch on. I appreciate that the papers probably simplify along the lines of 'Lib Dems oppose Bi Weekly collections' but it might be time to stop phoning the papers every time they find some over full bins and start taking on Veolia directly. They could also help in their walkabouts by tackling people directly as councillors and asking those people who haven't started using the WEEKLY collections of recycling/food/garden waste why.
-
Permalink Reply by Paul Bumstead on
-
My concerns on this topic fall into two areas:-
1. There has been no consultation on the topic. Obviously the Cabinet Member for the Environment and Veolia have made a decision that is not in the best interests of the Borough as a whole.
2. I doubt that any real consideration has been given to communicating the new arrangements to residents. How many nationalities are represented in Haringey and, it can be said, that English is not their first, second or even third language. This is a major problem and will probably cost even more than the anticipated £900,000 saving.
Whilst I have absolutely no problem with fortnightly collection of residual waste some of my neighbours struggle to cope with weekly collections. Will Veolia increase the amount of Street Sweeping to three or four times per week on every road to cope with the overflow from the bins - I doubt it!
-
-
Hi Paul, your second point is fair although much can be done with pictures.
On the first point re consultation, this was delivered to my inbox this morning (this conversation may be generating some interest amongst the powers that be so keep posting your thoughts people)
Excuse the officialese, this is a council publication:
"In order to inform the procurement process of the Waste Managment Contract, Haringey undertook consultation on its waste services in the summer of 2009. A questionnaire was distributed in Haringey People which is delivered to every household in the borough. The consultation was also available on Haringey’s website. This generated 6,800 responses, and gave the opportunity for residents to comment on any aspect of the council's waste services. The council received the largest ever response to a consultation and the results were given to prospective contractors to consider when developing their bids for new services. Residents wanted us to recycle a greater range of materials, provide larger containers for recycling and provide a free bulky item collection service.
The new contract Haringey Council have with Veolia is set to deliver a 40% recycling rate and a 40% reduction in carbon emissions by 2015."
So as far as HC are concerned, a consultation process was carried out and they are acting according to people's expressed wishes. Whether you agree with their conclusions is another matter but it does go to show that consultations do guide policy and therefore it would have been in everyone's interests to take part and not just the 6,800 that returned the forms.
-
Permalink Reply by Michael Anderson on
-
We vote for our Council. Should there really be a referendum on every policy?
-
-
Michael,
Yes we vote for the Councillors every four years but the have a duty to involve which calls for more than them sitting around the Council Chamber and making decisions.
-
-
Hi Liz,
Thanks for that. There are a couple of problems with the consultation process. Haringey People is supposed to be distributed to every household but |I know from experience that this is not always the case. Whether its the postal service or private delivery companies, there is no 'quality' check to ensure that what is supposed to be done is really done. My other concern is that Haringey People is only distributed in English so going back to my earlier point - it does not have the impact desired.
Consultations on the website are even more doubtful. Not everyone has internet access at home and whilst they could go to the Library I dread to think how long the queues would be to make use of the limited number of Computers available - 24/7 Libraries?
Actually I well remember that particular consultation - I was one of the 6,800 respondents as well as trying to encourage others to participate.
-
-
Again, can't disagree with you re Haringey's lack of joined up working. However, as I understand it if places have no garden, they are not being expected to have bins (the bad news is that they'll get recycling sacks...we'll see how that goes!). I don't think leafy MH are having the problems but the areas not disimilar to our own in the north of the borough: Wood Green, Woodside, Bounds Green etc are.
Sorry Billy, can't feel any sympathy for a multi-national company who make billions in profit and who take the contract. Surely they were under no illusions about what they faced here? You contract to do something, you do it. You can't start bleating about it being too tough after you start taking our money. Hire more staff, do more and do it quickly to prevent small problems becoming disasters and if that costs the company money, eh bien tant pis.
-
-
While I am in favour of what is being proposed I have real worries about the implementation. Pre-publicity has been virtually zero and and lot of people are going to carry on as if it was weekly. I consider my self fairly well informed but until this thread, I had no idea it was happening so soon.
I would have hoped for a period of really lively engagement in the run up to the switchover to get people thinking about how they can manage their waste in a different way.
My big fear is that we are going to end up with piles of rubbish and/or more fly-tipping when people have no more room in their bins.
Would it be the end of the world if the start date for the new arrangements was pushed back to allow work to be carried out with people in the area?
-
-
Again, I have to agree with you. The conversation I had with Veolia staff at the Area Forum was not particularly reassuring and I tried to point out that I thought their data on potential problem areas was no where near comprehensive enough. I also pointed out that I had no idea we were expecting a June start on the ladder (until I asked her and she got our her timetable nor did she and she was at the Harringay and St Ann's area forum!).
I also agree pushing back the start date would do no harm if it was preceded by a period of intense engagement. Reversal (as suggested above) would be wrong as it might just undo any work.
I think it would be helpful to document just how much if any info/engagement we get on this in the next month. It will give us ammunition to prove that the preparation is (may be) inadequate for this kind of big behaviour change.
-
Permalink Reply by JJ B on
-
I believe in recyclling. But even better I believe in reducing the amount of waste I put out.
But...who mentioned a bespoke daily collection? Not I. I just said that in many european cities there is a daily collection, when we in London, a very rich and large metropolitan area, are debating two weekly ones! Can you not see the disparity? And the number of collections is not necessarily correlated to the levels of recycling. There are other ways to increase recycling and to decrease the amount of waste we produce. The two weekly collection is CRUDE! and is already resulting in increased rubbish lying around already dingy places. Is this really better? I think not.
But as you say, we will just have to shut up and take the crap and the rubbish overflow and the smells in summer.
If the council was HONEST!!!! they would just come out and say we need to save money somewhere and this is where we've decided to do it. If we don't do it here tell us where.
And btw they will be doing bespoke collections for homes in multiple occ and flats above shops, etc.
-
Permalink Reply by Alan Stanton on
-
I share the same fears, Michael.
It seems to me that the further east you go in Haringey the more likely you are to see evidence of a leave-it-on-the-street culture among a small but significant minority of residents. On the ground (literally) this is implicitly endorsed when Veolia's systems result in piles of purple bags accumulating at "hotspots" which are then added to.
You probably won't be surprised to hear that, as the roll-out has moved from west to east, information about how things have gone, what has worked and what hasn't, is not shared with backbench councillors. Nor is the learning reported to us - assuming that any of that actually happens in the disastrous Leader/cabinet system.
(Tottenham Hale ward councillor until 2014)
-
Permalink Reply by Justin Guest on
-
Alan. Your sign off has changed, from "Labour Tottenham Hale ward councillor" to "Tottenham Hale ward councillor until 2014". Are you not standing again in 2014?
© 2024 Created by Hugh.
Powered by
