Congratulations to Veolia. This morning the 75th 'veolia' tag was added to a forum thread (and this one makes it 76).
Sadly, for them of course, its a bit of a wooden spoon award this time round. There are some positive comments and even wholly positive threads, but by and large this isn't the PR most organisations would be looking for.
But, are we all being unfair? Are they on a hiding to nothing? Is theirs the type of operation that will win few friends, especially at a time of such change? Or, is the criticism deserved? If so, who should it be directed at? At Veolia? At their bosses, the Council? Or both?
Perhaps, more importantly, where do we all go from here? What on earth is the way forward?
They seem to do OK in Hackney but then, Hackney council are happy to use the large communal bins.
Interesting questions at the end there Hugh. Up until recently I would have said they have done an ok job, and responded to the issues I have raised personally.
However, These past two weeks have been nothing short of shambolic. I know the snow makes life hard for everyone, and I am even prepared to accept that I have had to squirrel recycling away until they managed to make it to my street but.... When we were told they might not get round last week, the guidance we were all given was that-
“Collections are likely to be one day behind, with the aim today (Tuesday) to pick up Monday’s scheduled refuse collection, and so on, until the backlog is clear and normal schedules are resumed. If necessary the crews will work on Saturday to catch up. If we are unable to collect some or all of your recycling this week we will make a double collection next week.”
Ok, so we make the best of it for a few days. Possibly they would be round at the weekend or Monday and back to normal on Weds. Our waste was only taken today, 2 weeks after the last collection. What ticks me off is the utter lack of communication. If there had have been some update we could grumble and moan, but most of us would have accepted it as a sign they were on top of the problem and managing it. As it is it looks to me like they simply gave up trying.
Oh I know how bad the streets were. I kept a comprehensive record.
Some things have improved, like street cleanliness. Some haven't, like bag collection. Some may have even got worse, like collection time for fly tipping from first reporting. Individuals within the organisation do a valuable job. Poor systems can let those individuals down and probably prevent them from doing even more. It is the systems I am talking about. Never the workers within it.
Liz, you forgot to mention the purple bags of doom... oh, how Ihate seeing those everywhere for days on end!
That's what I meant by bag collection which was bad under Enterprise and bad under Veolia. You did see my purple bags of doom post didn't you?
I think it is also important to remember how Veolia is, as a company.
Wot are their long term aims?
Wot pies are their other fingers in?
I let you decide if you want to research that rabbit hole.
But to it it lightly, it aint bloody good at all !
Yes, Veolia do like to aid Israeli in their Zionist quest to break the Palestinian people. But I wasnt talking about that ;)
How to begin to explain what an inept and unprofessionally run organization Haringey Veolia Services are.
Well for starters, I have been dealing with this organization now for at least 3 years, phoning up varies times to 'request' my recycle waste to be collected since they have a real bad habit of missing my collection.
At first instances you could discount the some miss collections through bad weather disrupting the services or other unforeseeable factors, but when it becomes the norm like how the sun rises to it setting then you will know that this is not a good trend at all.
It came to ahead last year (2012) where I have probably called around 15 to 20 times, most notably from October to December I had to call up at least 6 separate times for miss collection - you would have thought they would be investigating this to find out 'what' and 'why' are the reasons for continual miss collections, but I have know idea what is being done to prevent further aggravation, because I'm angered by this whole fiasco.
Now, 2013, seems to me that Veolia services is pulling out all the stops to better last year - I have had 3 miss collections already in a space of 5 weeks, the first being in the first week of January !! I currently have sitting outside my house 3 weeks of uncollected recycle waste (from the 17th of Jan to date which is the 5th of Feb !!) which has been building up to unacceptable proportions - in the last week I have spoken to at least 5 different agents who were trying to pass on my details to the waste collections Manager for them to come and collect to no avail.
Sometimes the agents with whom I speak with to find a solution give me reference numbers, for which use is this for I have no idea. I know it's not the agents fault as all they do is pass on relative information to the collections Manager, but I wonder what real role has a collections Manager has or is this an umbrella name to deflect any blame onto anyone ?! And yes, someone should be accountable for this farce - we are supposed to be living in a 21st century country, but instead we are getting a 4th world service - 3rd world countries have better priorities and services !!
I'm at my ends tethers - every other night I have cats and foxes outside my house having a tea party in my front garden with the recycle waste littered on the ground because the recycle bin is over spilling with recycle waste.
I mean it's bad enough to walk around Tottenham already, what with most backstreets like a mine field with the amount of fly tipping and dog mess that litters most pavements, but this, on my own doorstep, I'm at a lost on what to do next in a constructive fashion.
If your reading this Veolia - get your fingers out and do something about this or step aside and let a new company take up the contracts to ensure that the recycle and other waste/rubbish can and should be collected on a weekly basis without incident.
And I haven't even touch base with the normal rubbish miss collections and fly tipping that has also happened at my address !!
Sincerely,
A very dissatisfied member of the public
I empathise with you, Very Dissatisfied...in our street, my neighbours and I nervously await our recycling/refuse day each week with trepidation: will it all get taken away this week? Which bins will they miss? Will they leave the bins on the front path so if you've already gone to work or gone out before Veolia call, will be unable to put them back in the usual place in the front garden (a great advert to would-be burglars that you're not at home, too) until you get home much later in the day?
Our refuse bin was missed recently and despite many calls to Veolia and many promises that it would be collected the following day(s), nothing happened until we contacted one of our local councillors. We know that the staff are probably up against it and that it's not exactly a glamorous job, but, as you say, where is the accountability in the senior management of Veolia? I understand that the current contract with the Council is for 15 years...their performance really needs to be called into question now before things get any worse.
I don't know where you live, rebelrebel, but perhaps you can encourage your helpful local councillor - whoever s/he is - to raise these issues with Cllr Stuart McNamara who is leading a Scrutiny panel review on this. (As well as Stuart, I'm on the panel, as are Cllrs Karen Alexander, Jonathan Bloch, Pauline Gibson and Lyn Weber.
I'm sure some of us can find time to come to your street on a collection day and see what's going on. And do it without priming Veolia and Haringey's own Waste Management staff so we see the service residents are getting - or not getting!
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