Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
New waste collection arrangements: where we're at now
With the enforced retirement of the Community Volunteers from active duty, thank wheelies that Sustainable Haringey have stepped into the breach to open dialogue with Haringey Council over waste management and recycling.
Representatives from Haringey and Veolia met with seven members of Sustainable Haringey to examine how the changes to waste collection are going and what had been learned from the changeovers in Phase 1 and 2. The third phase covering the rest of Haringey will be rolled out in October.
First of all Michael McNicholas, Neighbourhood Action Team Manager, explained how the change had been publicised (letter and leaflet to all households, booklet delivered with bins, attending area forums and RA meetings). Extra council staff were taken on to deal with complaints and a HMO (houses in multiple occupation) action plan was developed.
He then went on to outline some measures of performance and lessons learned. These are listed below, taken from the official and agreed minutes of the meeting.
a) Impact on recycling – in phase1 and 2 areas 40% increase in dry recyclables; increase in green and food waste. On course to meet recycling target of 31.7% (ASK)
b) Missed collections – rise in March (with introduction of Phase 1). Various measures introduced to minimise this problem.
c) Call centre performance. Veolia received 10,000 calls per month in March (twice previous rate); this declined to 8000 in May before another rise. Problems dealing with all these calls so Veolia has increased staff, some staff work weekends to deal with emails and changes have been made to computer systems.
d) Container requests and delivery. Around time of Phase 1 great increase in requests for hessian garden waste sacks, kitchen caddies and outside food containers. He estimated that there have been requests for between 500-600 120 litre wheelie bins. Veolia have appointed dedicated container manager to ensure correct deliveries of containers, etc. Residents can now collect kitchen caddies and outdoor food waste bins from the Re-use and Recycling Centres in Hornsey and Tottenham.
e) HMO action plan – door knocking, letter to all registered landlords and letting agents, close collaboration with Housing Improvement Team, exploring powers to enforce HMOs through landlords.
f) “Side waste” and overflowing bins– Veolia visits, engages with and monitors these households. He gave examples. They have cards showing what goes in each container if people don’t speak English (and some staff with other languages).
Sustainable Haringey then raised some issues following the presentation, some of which will be familiar to HOL members:
a) Whether all households had been audited before the changes introduced (told this had taken place in late 2011 for all three phases).
b) The unsightliness of the wheelie bins especially in conservation areas. We saw photos of Noel Park – Michael agreed to do a street visit with the residents association. The option of smaller wheelie bins or shared larger one was discussed.
c) Why glass and other recyclables are not collected separately.We were told that one bidder for the service did offer this but it would have increased carbon footprint because of increased collection vehicles, etc.
d) Are people putting waste in the recycling wheelie bin?Has the percentage of waste in the dry recyclables sent to the Materials Recovery Facility (Murf) gone up because of this? We were told that council receives regular reports from Murf (these reports also go to DEFRA). The Murf refuses to accept loads if they are contaminated. Michael said that there had been no reports of contaminated loads from the Murf.
e) Sustainable Haringey representatives asked about commercial waste and it was agreed to have a separate meeting about this.
The final 15,000 households are in Phase 3 due to start late October. A key point to note is that Veolia will need to reschedule all rounds across the borough and this will result in changing the day of collection for most residents. Households will receive a new collection calendar. The design of the sticker on the recycling wheelie bin is to be improved (the writing fades on present stickers).
So, there's good here. Clearly, the news that recycling is going up is great and also that contamination is low. Veolia do appear to be responding to problems with extra staff and are listening to residents observations re bin design for example.
However, despite the action plan re HMOs, we don't have figures yet on whether this plan is working and what targets have been set re the success of the plan. On my pet hate (I must admit), the sheer unsightliness of the bins, there is some movement but I'm guessing places like Harringay without conservation status will be back of the queue when solutions are being discussed. Please feel free to add other comments and observation below based on what you have read here.
With thanks to Joyce Rosser, Convenor of Sustainable Haringey Waste Group for these minutes. Joyce says look out for another compost giveaway in Alexandra Park in October or early November. Shovels at the ready!
Tags for Forum Posts: bins, new recycling bins, recycling, veolia, veolia missed collections, waste collection
Replies to This Discussion
-
Permalink Reply by ant on
-
d) Are people putting waste in the recycling wheelie bin?...there had been no reports of contaminated loads from the Murf.
I remember the council saying there was some contamination before when we had weekly collections and green boxes so now with the bi-weekly collection and the big green wheelie bins the is no contamination at all? Not some, or gone up or down a little, but totally stopped all together? Seems hard to believe that can be complete or accurate info.
-
Permalink Reply by Alan Stanton on
-
It seems to have been an inexplicable and unexplained decision. Which at one stage was denied. But then carried though without the courtesy of telling volunteers. Nor, it seems, were they even thanked for their work in the past.
It other words, it seems to have been a textbook example of how not to do something to genuinely engage with public-spirited local residents.
I know that many Haringey staff will find this deeply regrettable. As do some councillors.
The Council leadership has heard the term "co-production with citizens". They may even use the words. But they seem incapable of singing the song.
(Tottenham Hale ward councillor)
-
Permalink Reply by Ruth on
-
Thanks for this update and close monitoring of situation Liz.
I have just walked down one of our streets and the smell from overflowing bins was horrible (it is warm I admit but even so...) and there was clearly recyclable stuff in normal bins and vice versa. Plus piles of stuff on the stree. Clearly some contamination of bins going on and some people who just dont give a damn about waste let alone about their neighbours.
Veolia cant re-educate people. Seems like carrots dont work so wonder what can be done.
-
Permalink Reply by Liz on
-
Hi Ant and Ruth. I must admit I raised a sceptical eyebrow at *no* contamination. This may be because the bin collectors simply don't empty the bin if they detect the wrong waste in the wrong bin therefore they don't make it to MURF. They are supposed to tell the householder why they haven't collected the bin via a card system but I'm not sure that they do.
I also think that a lot of this feedback from the council/Veolia is based only on Phase 1 (West Haringey) and does not include information on Phase 2 (Central Haringey). I wasn't able to attend the meeting this time but that's my reading of the minutes.
On Community Volunteers, it is clear from the review for Neighbourhood Action that there is no planning for including the Community Volunteers in their plans, unlike in the previous incarnation which had provision for resident walkabouts and contact with enforcement officers. There has been no meeting for almost two years and we have had no communication from Haringey. Not even to announce the winding down of the group. I wrote about it here
This is not to say that people can't still do one of the main jobs of the CVs which was to report and follow up problems like dumping but there will be no formal support process for this from now on, nor any meetings to bring up precisely the problems being outlined daily re waste management. Luckily a few former CVs are now working through Sustainable Haringey so praise is due to Joyce for taking on the convenor's role in this.
-
-
Thanks Liz. And thanks to the CV's and all those who do this work for free.
I doubt that a card through the door will do much to discourage people who put their rubbish anywhere they like but it's a start and until things become clearer, then we have to put up with things. I am always sceptical of fines as well... dont seem to stop people dropping rubbish on streets or using mobile phones whilst driving etc.... Rubbish does depress me... Will try to maintain a positive approach!
-
Permalink Reply by Andy Newman on
-
Liz
I haven’t come out of retirement and have been on active and proactive service as a CV since year 2000 (12 years committed service?
I still report via the CV free phone tel no from between 1-2-3 & 4 items aday? especially on the school walk from the 'Gardens across Green Lanes and up through the 'Passage' up to North Harringay School.
I’m not prepared to put that camera down yet too much to be done out there I'm afraid still.
I spoke to Cllr Canver several months ago about the CV's and she was hoping to relaunch the scheme again soon?
Andy
-
-
I think my point is, Andy, that while we are quite prepared to put the time in to report problems, the community volunteers scheme has been discontinued, hence the 'enforced' of my original piece and therefore, all the other stuff which we did including meetings have simply stopped happening.
The value of being on the community volunteers scheme was not about reporting problems via a free number ( I mostly use the online form anyway). Its value lay in the process of community engagement and discussion that tried to work on long term solutions and enabled interested residents to go beyond the confines of their own area and to be able to look at problems across the borough and compare notes.
Sustainable Haringey are now stepping into that void created by the suspension or whatever it is being called and I'm not sure that there is even any need to to relaunch something that seems merely an afterthought in Neighbourhood action planning.
-
-
On my pet hate (I must admit), the sheer unsightliness of the bins, there is some movement but I'm guessing places like Harringay without conservation status will be back of the queue when solutions are being discussed. Please feel free to add other comments and observation below based on what you have read here.
I'm totally with you on the unsightliness of the bins, (and smellyness). The only way I can see we to fix that is to go back to more frequent collections and so smaller and fewer bins. Yes that will cost something but what price do we put on the attractiveness of our neighbourhood? The council says it 'might' save 'up to' £300k with these bi-weekly collections, thats not really that much across the entire Haringey. They've a one billion pound budget and rubbish collection is a basic service, they could find £300k from somewhere else.
-
-
I agree Ant, I simply can't understand how the council can address one issue, i.e. encouraging more recycling whilst ignoring the issues it creates; unsightly and smelly streets. Is this the better of two evils? Does Haringey Council care what their borough's streets look like? With such limited resources available to the council, I have little faith in them being able to re-educate those who do not understand the relatively simple concept of recycling. Weekly bin collections with smaller bins are the better solutions to addressing these issues.
On another point, last week I ordered new waste bins (black bin, smaller recycling bin and food waste caddy) and received them yesterday with little fuss or interrogation. I received the new smaller recycling bin which is a lot more 'attractive' and takes up less space than the large one it replaced. In my view many homes (non-HMO's) don't require the large recycling bins and considering they are emptied weekly, over-flowing bins should not be an issue. If residents requested the smaller bins, this would go some way in reducing the bin clutter in our streets. Also, making use of the food caddy which is collected weekly (or better still a compost heap) would go some way to alleviating the nasty smell emanating from our front gardens. Of course my bin won't smell of peaches anytime soon as it is full of soiled nappies for two weeks.
-
-
I live in Muswell Hill and I agree with the above comments. The Avenues and roads like Muswell Rd where there are a great number of flats, have a clutter of bins outside or beside them. The bins are found overflowing and exude a fermenting rancid scent when walking by, it's a shame. A private wheelie bin washer came out yesterday. This costs about £5 per wheelie (hes called funnily enough 'Mr Bin'). When he finished, he reported that the black wheelie bins which had a week's worth of nappies and other soiled stuff, actually had a colony of maggots and flies. There is no water source outside to hose the bins down, so we pay someone to clean them with his own mobile water source. The residents in these flats are young families who do recycle although when the black bins are full, waste is crammed in any bin, as there's no space at the front of the house. These bins are always collected, so lord knows where they end up. Its an unhappy state of affairs right now since March. The answer could be to re instate weekly waste collections and have smaller black bins, with Swiss/German style education on recycling and benefits, certainly it can't get worse than this.
© 2024 Created by Hugh.
Powered by
