Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
The bin army marches East...
So...the monster recycling bins have arrived in the east of the borough (in my part of it, at least- not sure if they did the whole section in one hit?)
Unsurprisingly, I came home from work yesterday evening to find several sets of neighbours boggling over how we're going to fit them all in, commenting on how coming home felt like 'walking through a corridor' and in another case, bargaining over sharing one in a bid to steal back some garden space.
I don't think I've ever seen my street unite with such neighbourly spirit before :D
Seriously though, it's not helped the streetscape one bit and I'm disappointed that flats with shared gardens have been treated as houses to create these bin parks. I'm lucky in having enough space to deal with two additional bins so I probably won't be applying for smaller ones myself unless neighbours are keen to do so, but it'll be interesting to see how many others send them back!
How are others in the east of the 'hood finding the new additions?
Tags for Forum Posts: new recycling bins, rubbish, veolia
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Tilly on
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I love the new recycling bin!
We must have had them for around 3 months now. In that time it hasn't been stolen (this happened a couple of times with the boxes), I haven't been able to fill it (not enough room in the old box) and neither mine, nor my neighbors have tipped over and sent their contents spilling over the street (when windy, debris often flew out of the boxes and littered the area).
The only issue I've had is that in the dark the bins look very similar, and I did add the recycling to the landfill bin once (oops!). I guess I'll put a sticker on top or something.Admittedly I'm fortunate enough to have a front garden, so they aren't on the street.
I'm proud to live in such a borough as progressive as Haringey. A lot of my friends in different cities (even different boroughs) a) have to sort their recycling into separate containers, or b) take a trip to the supermarket if they want to recycle. The first takes up much more room in the garden. The second takes up more room in the house.Not recycling will mean our council tax goes up, while our planet warms up.
I can't believe how lucky I am to have such a convenient solution to help me do the right thing. It's win-win-win as far as I can see!
(And no, I do not work for the council!).
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Permalink Reply by 2m9rjo39tc8a8 on
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We've had ours for several months now and I really like it. The green bins are bigger so I can recycle more and I'm also making much more of a concerted effort to recycle - something, I'm ashamed to say, I was a little scatty about with just the small green bix. I've also separated my food waste for the first time ever since the food caddies arrived. I applaud the Council for making us do this. But I'm grateful we don't have to separate our recycling cf some other areas: my parents have three big bins for recycling, for example. But I admit we live in a house and so have not suffered "bin clutter" in our garden compared with some of our neighbours who live in flats.
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Permalink Reply by Abi on
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That last sentence is all I'm talking about in this particular post - I don't think anyone is disputing that having extra space to put recycling is a bad thing or why any attempts to discuss this seems to be taken as such.
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Permalink Reply by Milda Rami on
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Tilly, I share the sentiment completely!
However, I wonder why they need to take the recyclables on weekly basis since our box never gets 100% full (despite of 4 adults in the houseful, some of whom - admittedly - need to be nudged to recycle). Surely, they could save more money by doing it every two weeks?
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Permalink Reply by Alan Stanton on
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Please nudge, Milda. Help save the planet.
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Believe me, I do!
It still astonishes me that some people need to be asked/reminded to recycle. I regularly fish cans out of kitchen rubbish. Mind you, its mostly one housemate... Any ideas how to educate her without coming across as overly bossy? :D
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Milda, I wish I had some surefire solutions! But isn't it strange how people do get used to various changes? And there are often unexpected but significant shifts in public attitudes?
I'm thinking back, for instance about smoking in pubs and restaurants. And much much earlier, car seat belts. Which eventually became normal behaviour. Decades ago I had a friend who'd scoff every time I got in his car and plugged in the seat belt. (Weirdly, he didn't change his view even after someone we both knew went through a windscreen and needed a series of plastic surgery operations on her face.)
But people do change their behaviour. Though, as I'm sure you know, our problem right now is accelerating the speed of change across a range of behaviours before disastrous consequences overtake us - and people in probably more vulnerable corners of the world.
Obviously I don't know your housemate. But your challenge - to come up with ideas that don't mean being too bossy - is the same challenge which Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein set themselves in their book Nudge. You may have read it.
If not, it's about how organisations can change people's behaviour without instructing them. Or simply relying on them freely doing the right thing (free market anything goes) Taking their general approach you may be able to come up with some smart ideas for your house. (For example, they discuss "incentives" and "feedback".)
You can see them here on video talking about the book. And here's Thaler.
The Big Green Bookshop in Wood Green currently has a new paperback copy (£9.99.) Pop in there and take a look. (Muswell Hill Library has a copy, so your local branch could order it.).
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How about the rubbish services cleaning these bins occasionally - it would be good for hygiene! They do it up north in Newcastle upon Tyne, for instance.
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We got our bin yesterday. Yes, I did breathe a bit of a sad sigh this morning as I tried to manouvre the normal bin out from beside the new recycling bin. I think they'll both fit but it's not exactly beautifying my front garden. Then again we often used to fill 2 of the recycling boxes per week and there's so much rubbish blowing around that I'm hoping this will help a bit, as other 'gayers have said here.
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Here in the far east, our own "monster" green-top arrived. Along with a leaflet telling us what to feed it. But it's much too big so I phoned Veolia 8885 7700. Without saying I am a councillor and initially without giving my name and address, I asked for the next size down.
"Is it because of the size of your household?", asked the helpful woman at Veolia "Contact Centre". "Exactly," I said. "It's bigger than our old general waste bin. If we flatten the cans and packaging we're not going to fill it in a week". She gave me a reference number and we now await the new slim size.
Which incidentally, means we'll be able to get through the front gate on bin-day.
One small niggle. I do wish Veolia and Haringey had run the leaflet past the Plain English Campaign. They charge £68 per 500 words with a minimum of £150 plus VAT. As the wordiest of the eight pages has 237 words the total charge wouldn't be much more than this. (It's a bit cheaper for Plain English Campaign members.)
Haringey isn't a member. Like many injelitant organisations, one of its regular excuses is: "We're Doing It Already".
(Tottenham Hale ward councillor)
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Permalink Reply by pamish on
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Our bins have arrived in Page Green, along with the leaflet. Already some people are saying they are too big. So why did they not ask first what size of bin we would need? Do they have so little faith that they would get a response from the Tottenham plebs that it wasn't worth bothering to ask? Plus some houses have two green bins where I know they don't RC at all... will that be followed up?
The leaflet has no mention of the info being available in other languages. That might have helped with the non-compliers, my observations tell me. As LBH publishes so much in translation, why was this note not included? Not a 150-language leaflet, but an indication that it could be obtained by post/online, an A4 sheet would do, to match to the smiley pictures.
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I agree, Pam. Though to be fair, they've tried to do it in pictures as far as possible.
I'd also have liked some cheap(ish) and cheerful YouTube videos - with alternative languages in subtitles. Veolia itself puts out some expensive looking videos and could have done a bit of this.
I also have enormous respect for those lively Haringey staff who've continued to try using video and other online resources in a creative way. Despite the dead culture at the top.
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