It seems that Harringay residents have received notification of the charges which will be made by Haringey Council for weekly garden waste collection from October (we haven't had ours yet) - £75 per year, and requires having a new wheelie bin. There's a lively discussion on Harringay online about it (thanks Roslyn for mentioning this). It doesn't sound as if the Council have thought out the issues which will arise from it - surprise surprise. In particular, the increase in fly tipping.
Given the ferocious cuts to Council funding, I am myself not averse to paying for garden waste collection - much better than where there was no collection. At present those without gardens are in effect subsidising those who do have them - and in particular those with large gardens who have a lot of prunings! So the poor are subsidising the rich. BUT we do not have room for another wheelie bin, as most other people probably don't, and the garden sacks are so much better - some weeks we have lots of garden waste, and use more than one sack, and most weeks we have none at all. The Veolia team just chuck the contents of the bags into large bins anyway. We don't have a car, so could not take the stuff to the recycling centre.
A fairer system of charging would be to have different levels according to council tax bands - since it is usually the large houses that have the large gardens. Surely this would not be difficult to administer?
Replies
It looks like Veolia are not after all starting the new garden waste collection regime next week, but will continue to collect the hessian sacks for a short period. Somebody made enquiries about it, and received the following response:
You will get a call back from Veolia this week to formally sign you up and take payment.
We will continue to collect hessian sacks for a short period of overlap between the new and old service. As we do this we will tag the hessian sacks as a further reminder to residents of the change in the service and prompt to sign up the new service if they wish.
She (Joyce Rosser of Sustainable Haringey) says they are charging £55 for a small bin. Like her, I emailed Veolia* to request a small bin, and got a quick acknowledgment, but no request for payment nor any sign of a bin. *enquiries.haringey@veolia.com
I've been abjectly useless at doing anything about this, but thanks so much for the update. Recent high winds have blown away my hessian sacks so I'll have to get a replacement pronto. No idea where I'd put a small bin.
The charges for garden, bulky waste and new bins have not been thought through. There will be an increase in bulky waste fly tipping and it's not beyond the imagination to see some sort of bin wars between those who do pay and those that don't for garden waste. Rather than repeat a now very long list of negative environmental consequences. No one has thought about air quality or flooding. Private gardens that have healthy plant life are actually good for everyone. Plants help to clean the air that we all share. Lawns help to soak up rainfall and reduce flooding. Green spaces whether public or private should all be encouraged, not converted in to low growth green areas or worse hard scaped. Veolia struggle to meet their targets in some areas, particularly temporary letting areas, they already have a hard enough job trying to keep on top of illegal dumped bulky waste. Charges are bound to increase dumped bulky items, making it even more difficult for the company to deliver their targets for street cleansing.
I've thought about this a lot, as a family without a car and with only probably 10 or so bags of waste a year. I agree with all here. One idea I had was those of us with back-alleys to our gardens could club together for a wheelie bin or two and fill it up via alley and then put it out the gate at end for collection each week. 5 households at £15 a year each might make more sense and make use of the largely unused alleys in the way they were intended back in the days of coal deliveries etc
Here's a link to the PETITION
https://www.minutes.haringey.gov.uk/mgEPetitionDisplay.aspx?ID=58&a...
If anyone wants to borrow a bike trailer to take green waste to the dump, I'm happy to arrange a lend from Haringey Cycling Campaign. I've taken 50kg of rubble to the dump on it, it can handle big loads with ease. Not having a car is no object!
Annabel, I rec'd my leaflet yesterday, and I've read through most comments on the Haringey Online forum (thanks for that link) where everyone is, quite rightly, furious. A lot of people only use their hessian sacks 5/6 times a year, which works out a lot more expensive than Haringey's "£1.45 a week" quoted on the leaflet.
Someone on the forum has managed to speak to Veolia who confirm that bins are not obligatory, they can provide new hessian sacks for those who don't have space for another bin. But how on earth are they going to prevent those new 'paid for' sacks from being pinched, it's hard enough keeping track of the current 'free' ones?!
I do agree that a graded band of charging, related to each property's c/tax band, would be fairer.
Anyone without a car is going to be stuffed. So this could be an opportunity for a budding entrepreneur with a van to set up some sort of pay-as-you-go local collection to take garden waste to the Haringey recycling centre.
Any ideas anyone?
That's great news that hessian sacks can be used rather than wheelie bins - but as you say, it's hard enough keeping hold of the existing 'free' ones, let alone 'paid for' ones. I wonder if the drivers will check which properties have paid, or will just empty the special bins and sacks whatever house they are outside?
I must admit I didn't read even MOST of the comments on HoL - there are masses of them!
Good idea about local entrepreneur - tho' I wouldn't want the job myself ...
Guess there'd have to some sort of indelibly-inked address system on the bags - but then, would the collectors actually bother reading the address on the bag to check it was at the right address? Or would they have some sort of online checking system in the lorry to enable them to check they're collecting from the correct addresses... I'm sure they've thought it all out thoroughly though ;)
Sure they have ...
-
1
-
2
of 2 Next