Forum Topic

Wheelie bins: another irritation

Why is it not possible to get a smaller wheelie bin for recycling -- just as you can for rubbish? For many ratepayers, the large recycling bins take up too much space and are never likely to be filled.

Ian Richardson ● 3534d55 Comments

As I drove to work this morning I noticed a couple of wheelie bins had been pulled over and the black bags torn and looted with the usual mess everywhere.Got to hand it to Mr and Mrs Fox: they're pretty smart!

John Walker ● 3513d

So Keep Britain Tidy are the Council's "advisors" (see today's story on front page)?Let me get this straight-it's not OK to leave a small wheelie on the pavement but it's entirely fine for Amey to leave 360 litre wheelies on the pavement after they have been emptied? I hasten to add that the vast majority of houses on my street do not place their wheelies on the pavement for collection.Perhaps Keep Britain Tidy could have a word with Amey?

Terry Freestone ● 3519d

Penelope, do you still have uncollected extra bins? I will gladly take these off your hands and give them to someone who is still waiting for their wheelie bins - I have a long list, please let me know, I will need your address vanessa.costello@btinternet.com

Vanessa Costello ● 3519d

So we've been visited to see how we are getting on by Keep Britain Tidy and to ask us to keep our wheelie bins on our own properties and not on the street.  The contractor is supposed to return them to where they got them from.It just isn't possible for many because then they wouldn't be able to get in or out of their front doors or gates or close the gate to keep the children - or dogs - in safely.Many people ought to be reassessed as they could manage with smaller wheelies - or they could go back to the old system.  They are still some dustbins around. They DO exist and they CAN be obtained but you will have to be persistent.  Talk to your neighbours.

Philippa Bond ● 3520d

As he never responded to my emails when he took over I have never bothered to waste my time since in emailing him.He has been blindly in love with wheelie bins for a considerable amount of time.  I haven't and I've been living where they are an eyesore - and they are here now. They create other problems. I have been hoping that by the time we got to this someone would have come up with something better.  In Sydney they have been trying something else for their Victorian properties because they weren't a success.Twitter?  I'm not sure.  Is there a rantcheck on it?!!

Philippa Bond ● 3528d

Councillor Mahfouz did  answer me on Twitter - well, he asked me to email him (which I already had) and he says he will sort it out. Worth a try?

Penelope Crocker ● 3529d

Collection at nearly 4pm.  Not the usual crew so they say.  Is there any chance that we will ever get continuity?  We don't want the boxes thrown back and we want them to conscientiously empty all the bins and boxes put out.  How are we going to get this to happen?  Certainly not by staying silent.

Philippa Bond ● 3529d

I should ask ad see if you can get them.  There must be some going as there are people getting smaller ones.

Philippa Bond ● 3529d

Food waste bin was collected this morning.Still waiting for the other collection.  I heard somewhere else they were still collecting at 10pm.  They won't want to do that in the winter.  We're supposed to have our bins out by 7am and the collection used to be done by lunchtime.  Sometimes there was a run around later for flattened cardboard.  We didn't have the pavements blocked by wheelie bins all morning.

Philippa Bond ● 3529d

It will have to wait until I get back to London this evening.

Libby Kemp ● 3529d

Can you please report this direct to the two senior directors responsible for wheelie bins, sorry, environment:Darren HenaghanInterim Director of Environment HenaghanD@ealing.gov.uk  Keith TownsendExecutive Director for Environment & Customer ServicesTownsendK@ealing.gov.uk

Joanna Dabrowska ● 3529d

This Morning wheelie bin collection vehicle VU61 HSF sat on the corner of Twyford Crescent west and Twyford Avenue from just after 0800 until about 0855, when another lorry speddpwn Twyford Avenue gave a hoot, the parked vehicle drove off and the other turned left into Twyford Crescent. No collection in our area today and almost an hour wasted parked up.

Libby Kemp ● 3529d

I raised this matter with the officers right at the beginning of the roll out about leaving bins on pavements:http://ealingcommon.yourcllr.com/2016/06/10/wheelie-bin-fiasco/There are many streets in Ealing that are lined with bins on the pavement. Technically, the council should fine the contractor or indeed itself (the ultimate responsibility is the local authority's under the Local Government Act to provide a waste collection service).The contractor nor the council don't care. They are cutting costs (whilst putting £40m into reserves at the same time) at the expense of a borough looking like a fly tip and increasing the likelihood of rodent neighbours moving in (public health?).

Joanna Dabrowska ● 3529d

Perhaps it will take someone to have an accident to shake these idiots into action.Who would have thought collecting rubbish should be such a palavva.

John Walker ● 3529d

Same here-every single bin on my street has been left on the pavement. These are the supersized ones. The council had the nerve to tweet Sunday evening that everyone should enure that their bin is at the boundary of their property ready for collection. Why does Amey think it's OK not to put them back there?

Terry Freestone ● 3529d

Things such as the above:Report it all to your local Councillors. search for them by your electoral ward.http://ealing.cmis.uk.com/ealing/Councillors.aspxThe only way to 'try' and combat such a bad service is to bombard them into action, surely they can't ignore everyone?But if they do let's hope the people vote them out come the next local elections.

Lee Page ● 3529d

"As I understand it people were asked if they wanted to share their bins with a neighbour so many after discussion with their neighbours asked to.  They didn't expect to get bigger bins as a result..."Exactly right,Philippa. We thought we would be getting 240s. The man we spoke to at Ealing Broadway Centre when they were showing the bins earlier this year made no mention of these huge things.

Terry Freestone ● 3529d

Our entire street is littered with emptied bins which have not been put back where they found them. I had to help a lady with a pram on another street where the collection guys still were, but they refused to put her bin back inside. I phoned Ealing Council to complain & the guy I spoke to hung up on me!

Simon Bell ● 3529d

Bin lid left open on a rainy day - first time it's happened, looks deliberate. Why should I put myself out by making sure bin right way round and easily accessible when they do this? Rant over.

Maggie Anderson ● 3529d

As I understand it people were asked if they wanted to share their bins with a neighbour so many after discussion with their neighbours asked to.  They didn't expect to get bigger bins as a result as they'd understood the reason for discussion being whether they could manage with sharing the amount of space.We've been told that extra recycling will be taken if left out with the recycling bins.  I've seen bins stuffed with large flattened cardboard boxes so stopping them from being filled with other recycling - or closing.  I wonder how easy it is to get this cardboard out of the wheelie when it is tipped?

Philippa Bond ● 3529d

Ah, that would explain it.(It would have been helpful if we saw the original request. I have been unable to find it online.)Not all of us live in a self contained house. Not all of us who live in converted buildings have caretakers. So if you think 240 litre is difficult, spare a thought for us who are lumbered with the behemoth bins!

Terry Freestone ● 3530d

They responded to my questions and I did not ask about 320L bins.

Libby Kemp ● 3530d

Libby's post above quoting the Council's response, makes no mention of 320 litre bins. This makes their response incorrect. Obviously, someone has forgotten about these bins.

Terry Freestone ● 3530d

I consider 240l to be big.  What do you mean by the "the big bins have disappeared"?

Philippa Bond ● 3530d

Thanks Joanna, I do have a copy of the cabinet papers. What I was trying to find out was the unit cost per bin by type as I was trying to work out the officers thinking of why they chose those amounts.  How did they decide some 6% of refuse bins and 2%of recycling bins should be small when 29% of properties are small terraces. Adding into this the number or persons in the borough over 60/65 years of age which is estimated to be 46,000, the majority of whom will live as couples or single people and should not require 240L bins,if only that they are extremely difficult to manoeuvre, and then the households of only one or two persons under 60/65. Was any of this information even considered/built into the purchasing equation? I can only think it was all done on cost and smaller bins for some reason cost more to purchase than large bins?

Libby Kemp ● 3530d

From a Freedom of Information Act request ref.16/712"Refuse bins Number of 240L bins ordered 69,000 grey (read black) bins Number of 140L bins ordered  4,500 (read black)grey binsRecycling Bins Number of 240L bins 73,000 blue bins Number of 120L bins 1,500 blue binsThere were also some larger 360L wheeled bins ordered.The total contract value is estimated to be worth £2,944,257.50 in value (including wheeled binsmanufacture, delivery and distribution).

Libby Kemp ● 3530d

The 320 litre bins are for houses converted into flats of which there must be hundreds in the Borough. Therefore, I don't understand where those figures come from-the big bins have disappeared.

Terry Freestone ● 3530d

Hi Nick, I have emailed you

Penelope Crocker ● 3530d

I had a lot of problems for 6 weeks, with a black bin delivered that I did not want and any attempts to get a smaller blue bin ignored.I live in Acton and eventually contacted my local councillor, Dan Crawford, and within a few days I had a smaller blue bin (this was about 10 days ago, so they must have got some smaller ones left).You all have 3 councillors for your ward/local area - contact one and see what happens (I hear here in Acton some of the South Acton lot have been useless). If it doesn't work out first time round, get on to the next one... Some people here have contacted the Conservatives, also with good results.

Urs Esser ● 3530d

Also, see answer to question 28 in last February's Full Council's written question http://tinyurl.com/LBE-WrittenQns-23022016The numbers don't seem to stack up somewhere. Where did you get your numbers from?

Joanna Dabrowska ● 3530d

Libby,Sections 3.6 and 4 in last year's cabinet papers http://tinyurl.com/LBE-Cabinet-June2015

Joanna Dabrowska ● 3530d

Aren't the 320l ones the ones that were given to neighbours sharing?I think that there are a lot of 140l bins out there both black and blue.

Philippa Bond ● 3530d

From an FOE to the Council, but they refused to tell me the actual costs.

Libby Kemp ● 3530d

"The council ordered or had forced upon them by the contractorsRecycling Bins:240L wheelie bins 73,000 98%120L wheelie bins 1,500          2%"Who gave you those figures?This is a patent lie as my whole street has *320* litre RECYCLING bins. I'm sure we aren't the only ones.

Terry Freestone ● 3530d

Neither the big or small wheelie bins seem to be very good for flattened cardboard.  I keep walking past wheelies stuffed with this which keeps the lids open.  I wonder how well it comes out again.Large water bottles and large cola bottles can be squashed...

Philippa Bond ● 3530d

The council ordered or had forced upon them by the contractorsRecycling Bins:240L wheelie bins 73,000 98%120L wheelie bins 1,500         2%As some 29% of properties in Ealing are terraced with little or no space to keep the bins, another approximately 29% of the borough are 60plus and not taking into account the number of single person households, whoever did the modelling to work out how many small bins for both refuse and recycling are required needs to be moved on to another job, as they are certainly unable to work out the boroughs requirements.  Perhaps a job assisting the elderly and small persons manoeuvre their wheelie bins would be a more suitable position 

Libby Kemp ● 3531d

I hear that at a recent staff meeting, they were been told that the Wheelie bin project has been a great success.However they were also told that the call centre staff were very stressed due to the volume of complaints received!!

N robinson ● 3532d

This is is typical of politics today. Rather than providing an answer to the question that is accurate and truthful there is much discussion behind the scenes about being "on message"; that is what is the answer that we would like to give that fits are revisionist legend, rather than what really happened.

John Murias ● 3532d

Attempted but failed, I'm afraid.

Peter Millman ● 3532d

Ealing Council's reply to this FOI request contains a fundamental lie. It claims that the 240l blue recycling bin is the only option that was ever considered. This is manifestly untrue as 100s of the smaller 140l blue recycling bins were distributed ahead of 6 June. I can count at least 6 in our small road alone. Have attempted to attach a photo of the two side by side for comparison:https://flic.kr/p/KtNzyY

Peter Millman ● 3532d

Thank you for that Rachel.  Interesting.  So they presume that because people were issued with a green recycling box and a plastics bag that EVERYONE put them BOTH out FULL EVERY week.  I never did.  Some people put several green boxes out each week but didn't flatten anything.Residual waste - I haven't put any out yet since the new collection started on 6 June because I wanted to see how long it took us to fill a black sack.  Lots of people don't make a full black sack every week.  It varies as you may suddenly have some polystyrene packaging which fills a black sack on its own but you can always put half of it out one week and half another week or share with a neighbour (with permission).  The small bins take aout three black sacks.  The next size up takes about five.

Philippa Bond ● 3532d

https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/recycling_policy_and_conservatio#incoming-845914A typical lawyer vetted evasive response.Kind of says it all.This is why Local Newspapers with properly trained reporters were so important in keeping this kind of guff at bay and exposing such wilful incompetence.

Mark Kehoe ● 3532d

I was curious about this, too.  This is what the Council had to say:https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/recycling_policy_and_conservatio#incoming-845914

Rachel Brady ● 3532d

If you want to get rid of the excess pair, I would be interested .Nick R ( Nrobinson at Cix.co.uk) ( w5)

N robinson ● 3532d

There is a 94 year old lady living near me ( I won't reveal where) who has two bins bigger than her and two 7 inch drops to manoeuvre them.Sooner or later she will come to grief.She has tried contacting the Council by phone to no avail after 6 weeks of trying.I have tried for her. I had to do the same with my own parents with success but only after making a high level complaint.There are hundreds locally in similar predicaments and when winter comes , so will the accidents.If this is what Cllr Mahfouz thinks is a resounding success then he must expect that the consequences are also his responsibility when a tragedy occurs. It's very obvious that this will befall someone.He needs to  stop preening his deluded feathers and get to grip with the easily solvable problems.

Mark Kehoe ● 3532d

Well they've been out collecting and delivering bins this afternoon including those small 140l blue ones they say don't exist.If you want one keep on asking.

Philippa Bond ● 3532d

Barbara, you can have a smaller 140L refuse bin (fits approx. 3 bin liners). Shall I order you one?

Joanna Dabrowska ● 3533d

Despite what you are told by Customer Services (who must read from a script), there are THREE sizes of recycling bin. 140litre, 240 litre (standard) and 320 litre.Our house which contains four flats has four 320 litre bins-two rubbish, two recycling. They are very heavy when full.

Terry Freestone ● 3533d

I would rather my rubbish bin was smaller as i recyle much more than not recycle.

Barbara Karayi ● 3534d

Maybe ealing council are waiting on the smaller bins to become available before informing their residents that they are available.

Harry Jay ● 3534d

We are still the proud owners of 4 bins instead of 2. The contractors thought it was 2 houses (small side extension !!). I have joined Twitter explicitly to ask the council how long it takes to get an answer to my online form filled in weeks ago. Anyone know of any other effective way of getting them to answer? I might wheel them up to Ealing Broadway myself soon.

Penelope Crocker ● 3534d

The smaller 140l blue recycling bins were delivered to some households who ordered them before the 6 June rollout.  Ealing Council now say that they have none left and it's the 240l monster or nothing. This seems rather inflexible on their part. I had no idea the 240l bins would be so big until they arrived in our small terrace front garden. Since the Council have parked their bins on our land, the least they could do is continue to provide a choice that suits each household's needs and available space They seem to have forgotten that they work for us, not the other way round.

Peter Millman ● 3534d

Blue recycling bins are one size only, black bins come in three sizes (or so it says on the Council's website when you try to order a replacement bin).

Vlod Barchuk ● 3534d

Besides the info somewhere also says that they will take extra recycling if you have it and it is bagged and put beside your blue bin.  Textiles and batteries should be bagged (not together!) an put on top of your recycling bin.

Philippa Bond ● 3534d

It IS possible - as some people have them.  You need to keep on asking.  The big ones are very difficult to manoeuvre in a small space and the small ones are too but an improvement on the large ones!If you are using the food waste bin as well and are aware of the neighbourhood recycling banks and squash cartons and plastic bottles and flatten cardboard boxes you will have more space in your bins.

Philippa Bond ● 3534d