Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Waste and Recycling Review – Your views wanted
I am on the Environment and Housing Scrutiny Panel this year and one of our reviews will be on waste and recycling, in particular the fortnightly collection scheme introduced earlier this year. Phase 3 will be introduced in the remaining areas of Tottenham in October and the purpose of this review is to identify what can be learnt from phases 1 and 2, what has worked, what hasn’t worked, and help identify how the council can encourage greater compliance and behavioural change among certain resident groups to reduce residual waste and encourage more recycling and whether the new arrangements are providing value for money for the council and residents.
The panel will be gathering evidence from a number of sources and my part is engaging with local residents to identify areas where there are still problems, areas where the new arrangements are working well and any other issues such as whether the new arrangements are creating an eyesore on our residential streets. I will be looking round the ward to identify issues and it would be very useful if residents let me have their views, particularly as these new arrangements have had a little time to bed in and settle down. The panel is also hoping to do some site visits as part of the evidence gathering process.
Scrutiny has always been an area where both parties work incredibly well together and I hope that by working together on this review we can avoid some of the issues that have dogged the initial phases of the roll out.
Your views would be very welcome here or to me at karen.alexander.haringeylibdems@gmail.com by Tuesday 11th September 2012 please to allow time for the evidence and views to be collated.
Tags for Forum Posts: new recycling bins, veolia
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by ant on
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...whether the new arrangements are providing value for money for the council and residents
Can you say any more about how "value for money" will be determined and how much of the calculations will be made public? For example, how much are bi-weekly collections _really_ saving, or how much is it worth to have Frobisher Rd stinking for some days a fortnight, or how much is it worth to have the streetscape of the Ladder dominated by wheelie bins?
I've tried to do some investigation and calculations, as much as i can from the minimal and deceptive information that is public, on how much money might be really being saved by bi-weekly collections - ie only having the general refuse trucks coming every other week - and AFAICT its saving only a very small amount, less than £200k perhaps even less than £100k, and thats across the entire Haringey borough. I don't know what percent of Haringey that Harringay takes up, for the sake of argument lets guess 10%, so to have fouled up Harringay like this could be saving as little as £10k per year.All things considered surely that can't be considered good value for money?
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Permalink Reply by Robert on
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Hi Karen
My Green top recycling bin and food waste bin have been failed to be collected last week for the 3rd time since this program has started. I have found Viola's promises to collect within 24 hrs to be false and (on one occaision, I am expecting them to collect from me tomorrow).
I can forward the email streams with you if you want me to.
Many thanks
Robert
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This describes my experience precisely!
I live in N17
I can provide email string if you need it
The service is far from good
Joseph
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Permalink Reply by Isabelle on
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There has been a few threads on this site complaining about the service, which might be worth looking back at. Our house has had collection and communication issues with Veolia, some of which I have discussed here and am not keen in repeating.
I guess the new system would work if it was run as planned, so perhaps there is hope it will improve through better organisation and learning from mistakes.
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I agree, all over Harringay and Haringey, front gardens are full of bins. Many of the black bins are overflowing with rubbish, which is lovely for rats but not so good for humans.
I don't understand how many bins for each house and fortnightly collections could be considered a good idea by anyone.
The council has got a big job 'encouraging greater compliance and behavioural change' (to quote Karen) in an overcrowded borough which must have a big transient population. I can't imagine HMO landlords are going to be big on recycling, for instance.
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Permalink Reply by Hugh on
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Hate the visual pollution, hate the fact that you can pretty much count on the fact that in any walk in the areas with this system you get regularly assaulted by the smell of rotting rubbish. So yet again it's a matter of council policies being implemented without working through the impacts on local people or being willing to enforce 'great ideas'.
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Agreed, I too hate the sensorial pollution. Since when is it 'normal' to live with our rubbish displayed on our home fronts? I find the idea just shocking and was hoping that, if anything, we'd move towards having less bins.
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Permalink Reply by Col on
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Collections do seem to be random! I'm happy to recycle more and put less in the rubbish, but our 'house' is in fact 3 flats with 6 adults, the amount of recycling filling up on the steps to the entranceway is ridiculous (particularly when you factor in the bin and the waste food bin, along with the old green recycling boxes that still don't seem to have been collected). We could do with a twice weekly recycling collection!
Behavioural change doesn't happen over night, but the council seem to have assumed that by changing the way all the collections work it will. There's been less nudging and more pushing with this, with little education other than a leaflet. Litter / recycling bags outside houses that look messy are unlikely to aid behavioural change, if anything they simply reinforce an area as being messy...
That being said, it's better than the old small box sitting outside the front of the house!
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Permalink Reply by Jacqui O'Beirne on
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We live on Westbury avenue, the flat upstairs has has several changes in the last few months as it was students and then Olympic volunteers on a short term let, As I've mentioned before the first we knew was when the bins turned up, I did read the accompanying leaflet and put the one for upstairs under there door, but they obviously chose not to read it as everything still get put in the main bin, and it overflows. They re redecorating the upstairs flat for new students I presume, but how do you get them to understand about the recycling when they move in as its not obvious and though we have two large recycle bins only one food bin and one normal bin for two flats, it makes no sense.
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Permalink Reply by Hugo Read on
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Well here are my views....
The roll-out of the bins was farcical in the extreme. Moving from small green boxes to huge green bins was ridiculous step up in one go - the standard option should have been for the smaller bins, with people only getting larger bins if they asked for them, not the other way round. As it happens almost no-one seems to even know about the smaller bins as an option. Also houses split into two flats (not HMOs) generally only need ONE black bin and ONE green bin for both flats together. This should also have been the standard option, with only two bins in total (one black and one green) in front of each house. Instead of doing this, the way it was handled resulted in these lovely Victorian terraces looking like a wheelie bin park with hundreds of bins up and down every street. With a house split into two flats you end up with FOUR bins, two black and two green. A house with three flats now has SIX bins. It's crazy! I had a quick look in about thirty bins up and down a road next to mine (Cavendish I think) and ALL of the green bins except two were almost completely empty. Two or three outside one house in small front gardens, all empty. This was on a Wednesday, with only two days to go until the pick-up. Can anyone honestly hold their head up and say in all truth that they think this was the best way of managing this? It's not possible.The fact that in the implementation of this people thought it was necessary to have two huge greenbins outside a house divided into two flats that previously managed with one box each is ridiculous. One smaller one for a house and ONE larger one for two flats is MORE than enough for nearly everyone. There are so many bins out there it's a blight to the street. As for HMOs, that's a whole other problem. They should just have one supersize bin each for rubbish and recycling - some of these properties have about 8 bins in the front garden! It's totally ridiculous.So anyway, I've changed to smaller green and black bins, which is perfectly adequate for my house, which is a family of four. However I had to chase about three times to actually get the bins replaced. It was a complete joke. Every single person I know in family houses I've spoken to said they would prefer smaller bins but didn't know it was an option. Why weren't they asked? This should have been the STANDARD option and there should have been discussion about bin sharing in flats instead of just shoving vast quantities of huge bins in every front garden ruining the street. What a joke.So in summary this whole thing has been a farce and a big mistake and anyone involved in it with any courage would openly admit that and try to address these problems. The council should start asking houses THEMSELVES (not me!) if the houses would like smaller bins (including black bins, not just green) and asking flats if they would like to share bins. I bet you loads of houses split into two flats would love to do this but they weren't offered this as the standard option so they're stuck with a small font garden with four bins and no room for anything else and the view totally ruined. The council really needs to sort this out before the whole area starts looking like a bin slum.
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Yep I agree it would better for the standard for the new green wheelies to be smaller 120 Litre bins instead of big 240L ones. They look much less intrusive and it would at least be a start at doing something about the eyesore the bins have created.
So Karen (or Alan too as i see you're also on this committee), does the Environment and Housing Scrutiny Panel actually have any powers to have real changes made to what we have now or to how phase 3 is rolled out? Could you get phase 3 to use 120L green bins by default?
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Completely agree about the bin sizes, as I've said several times before. I too changed to smaller bins for both standard and recycling. I too encountered a general organisational reluctance to change over the bins.
My sense is that if we wait for the Council to fix this, we'll be in for a long wait. Would it take too much for a group of people to organise a switch locally? If say two people took a handful of roads and agreed to door knock to do the following:
1. Ask if people were aware of the small bin / reduced bin number option.
2. Invite them to order the bin configuration of their choice and take a signed order.
We'd then submit/publish a record of people's awareness / feelings about the new system and a whole set of bin orders.
We would need to check what is and isn't possible and exactly what would be required for the Council to act to act. We'd then go armed with materials illustrating the options and the necessary forms to take people's orders there and then. Houses split into flats would need the consent of all households. HMOs would need some thought.
Too daft for words?
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