Forum Topic

Council replace canvass sacks with hair nets plus green box

If you thought the councils plans to charge people who care enough to recycle garden waste £40 per annum for a wheelie bin to take their garden waste away every two weeks was daft, wait until you see what the council want to do with your plastics recycling. They want to replace the white canvass sack with a green box and a hair net that comes seperately. You have to use the hair net to stop the plastics spilling out onto the street. This will cost over £160,000 to introduce. I genuinely have no idea how this will save money. The box holds less plastic than the white canvass sacks and is a lot harder to use. People will just switch off at the stupidity of it all and just throw their plastics into their black sacks. See here for the photos. Hope the link workshttp://wwwcolmcostello.blogspot.com/2011/09/it-gets-worse.html

Colm Costello ● 5318d33 Comments

Hmm I wonder if the collection is noticeably higher during sports competitions?

Philippa Bond ● 5311d

I've no idea who the new (if) contractors are but I do hope they do not use the same methods as Hounslow. Extra long wheelbase trucks to reduce crews and incapable of negotiating most small streets causing many streets to go uncollected for up to 3 weeks on a regular basis.Should recycling contractors not be using electric vehicles anyway?Plastics weigh very little and garden waste is rarely heavy.

Michael Brandt ● 5312d

I hear the operatives of the current system breaking glass in the container in the current collection system every so often.  I don't know how often they run out of space. They did this week.

Philippa Bond ● 5312d

Lots of questions philippa that I will try to ask at Overview and Scrutiny. As a group, our shadow cabinet cabinet have called this decision in, so the cabinet member will have to come to the Overview and scrutiny meeting and explain his decision to us. We get to ask questions, then take a vote on whether or not the decision needs to be revisited. If we think it does, we send it back to cabinet and they can take on board what we say or ignore us. It's a public meeting so anyone can attend. It starts at 7pm at the town hall on October 6th.

Colm Costello ● 5312d

I thought it was odd!  I don't know how well those nets work just that they have been around a long time and they use them in Leicester and Wales somewhere.Squashing the bottles should help but even so as you say the green box is a lot smaller.  Mind you it takes us several weeks to fill the white sack even with a couple of skeptical twenty-somethings while I hate plastic and try to make an attempt to avoid it.What is happening to the lorries?  The plastic and garden waste are being collected in the same lorry - plastic one side and garden waste the other aren't they?  Are they changing the lorries?Is there also a change in contract for the plastic?  I do hope that the bottles are being put into a closed loop system and not just going for incineration at that new efw place near Slough.

Philippa Bond ● 5312d

PhilipaI won't be putting the box out with the net on it. I just wanted to see if all the plastics fit in easily, and how easy or difficult it is compared to the white canvass sacks. When i emptied the white sack into the green box, it was overflowing. You would expect that as the canvas sack holds at least 30% more than the green box. The next problem is putting the net on. It is not very hard but is more difficult than closing the white canvas sack. Then the box with plastics will have to be emptied. I can't believe that this will be easier than the white canvas sack, which is very easy to empty. It is hard to see any advantages, or understand why they are spending £160k on this change, but i accept there might be some. I just haven't seen any yet.

Colm Costello ● 5312d

Will your green box with net be emptied?  Or will the operatives know nothing about it? I believe it is the sudden focus and publicity on the subject that increases the rate not the change in itself.  I don't believe enough is done to inform newcomers to an area.  We must have a lot of new students for example.  I'd like to hear that there is lots of info in the university about what you can recycle and how in Ealing.  Sometimes it is years since the last campaign and people do move house!

Philippa Bond ● 5312d

The boxes are already out?  So, I guess it is status quo for red route and blocks of flats - still no plastic allowed, except plastic bottles in the clear recycling bag.

Charles Campbell ● 5313d

The nets may have advantages that i still can't see, but it is hard to believe that a box with a net on it will be easier and quicker to empty than the white canvass sacks. I can just see these collections taking an age and as they say, "time is money".Our collection will be tomorrow, so tonight I will empty my plastics from my white canvass sack into the green box and attempt to put the net on.

Colm Costello ● 5313d

It's good to hear that Milk & More appears to be working well in this area perhaps I'll go online.  I think it will make paying easier.  I always thought that the milk round became more difficult as the delivery times became later due to the round area increasing as more workers were seduced by the supermarkets.Re: the nets - they are not a new thing.  Just will be new to Ealing.  I've often wondered if they would work to keep paper in the green boxes - but I have so little nowadays or take it to the paperbank; and small bits of flattened cardboard I separate by putting it all inside a cereal packet and put that out when full.  (They ask for paper and cardboard to be separated.) http://www2.ealing.gov.uk/services/environment/recycling/green_box_collection/I've just come back from Tendring where they use lids on their green boxes - as do quite a lot of Councils.  It means you can stack one on top of another and stops the recycling flying around.  But it also means you can't assess what is in there. They are not able to recycle as many different things as us and you tend to see the green box by someone's path with their black sack sitting on top.

Philippa Bond ● 5313d

Nigel, I'm lucky in that there are only two of us and we only get through four pints of milk a week. For the extra 55p a week I'm happy to pay for the convenience of getting it delivered. It's different if you have a family of growing kids scoffing down pints of milk each day.

Emily Heath ● 5313d

This thread seems to have strayed a bit but I can't resist adding my three penn'orth on the value of Milk & More. I used to have milk delivered by the excellent Trevor before his sad demise but delivery times were fairly erratic. Now the round has been incorporated into Milk & More it consistently arrives around 5 am. If you handle your account on line as I do you can also order 'extras' - most of the basics - up to 9 pm the evening before, which I find very useful when I don't have time to go out to the shops.And yes - milk does taste better from bottles! It may cost a bit more but you are paying for what I regard as a very useful service and avoiding bringing all that plastic into the house.

Helen Johnson ● 5313d

I am now, of course, totally sidetracked by the thought of homemade rice pudding. Nutmeg on top?

Nigel Brooks ● 5313d

I agree so much about glass milk bottles.  I don't know how the supermarkets have all together been allowed to use this as a loss leader to just get people into their shops. The glass milk bottle delivered daily by electric float with a daily collection of empties (reuse approx 10 times  before any necessary recycling) was far better than these single use plastic bottles.  The milkman also used to know what was going on in the street so there was a social aspect to the round as well.I reckon it was all sacrificed in order to set up a closed loop plastic recycling system. Great for setting up that system but it has also meant that everyone has gone to the supermarkets and brought back masses more food largely overpackaged in all kinds of other plastic which is not part of a closed loop recycling system and which does not stack or squash in the same way and may not be recyclable. Rather short sighted.I still get milk delivered twice a week.  The roundsman who took over from Trevor only offers three times a week and I prefer not to have milk at the weekends.  This works quite well as it we have more time to get more or make rice pudding at the weekend depending on how many people are around. You can also order and pay online and buy other food so could be great if you are housebound at www.milkandmore.co.uk (but I still use traditional methods).  You can't be side-tracked on the walk across the whole of the supermarket to get to the milk (notice that marketing ploy) - so you save money that way!  It doesn't have to be a choice between milkman or corner shop/supermarket - you can mix the two!

Philippa Bond ● 5313d

I think that for many, including me, it is down to simple economics.Tesco are £0.55 (over 25%) cheaper for 4 pints of milk. I would love to do another 'bit' for recycling but that doesn't include paying a 25% premium.

Nigel Brooks ● 5313d

I get my milk delivered in glass pint bottles by Milk & More (www.milkandmore.co.uk). They deliver it before I leave for work - and I leave early, at 7am. It tastes delicious and they pick up the old bottles for recycling. Sometimes I have ordered other things like garden compost as I don't have a car and compost is heavy to carry. I cannot recommend them enough, it's so convenient and I haven't run out of milk once since I started using them. With supermarkets you have to be in to take delivery, this way it's just outside my front door in the morning.

Emily Heath ● 5313d

It is alaming sometimes when we see just how much plastic goes in the bin but at the same time the other things we used to use as packaging has gone down a lot.Most of those were also from sources that are not ideal.However the amount of raw material to make say, a 2 litre milk container is miniscule compared to the amount of raw material and energy to make a glass milk bottle.Plastic is also the most hygenic method for packaging given that we have a population of 60m to feed which is well on it's way to 70m.Although bulky, when melted down that bag of plastic will be no more than few onces.What made the milk bottle better was it's recyclability. Milk deliverd by electric vehicles and bottles reused dozens of time and then remade.It's almost perverse that this is almost a thing of the past. Our excellent milkman Trevor has recently retired and we stuck with him for many years even though the cost of delivery was way beyond the household economics.In the 70's we had no less than 4 milk rounds delivering, Unigate, Job's, Express and the Co-OP all with dozens of milk floats all over the borough.Easily the most efficent system but killed off by supermarket discounting and too many late deliveries

Michael Brandt ● 5313d

I still have the second green box I requested for plastics before the white sack was introduced.  I preferred using a see-through carrier bag/plastic bag as I did not have to retrieve this afterwards.We have such a lot of plastic because we failed to complain to the manufacturers/supermarkets so were deemed to have wanted it.  A lot of it is just used for marketing - pretty pictures and stacking purposes.  We should complain to Trading Standards about excessive packaging as well as the company/supermarket concerned.  We should try and avoid as much plastic as we can and we should keep on looking at the recycling instructions on packaging as well as the Council website - as the info changes as reprocessing facilities change. (British Retail Consortium Press Release re recycling packaging info 2009:  http://www.brc.org.uk/brc_news_detail.asp?id=1531)I can't understand how people can have lost all idea of volume and don't flatten the milk plastic bottles.  It is so easy and they then take up so much less space.

Philippa Bond ● 5314d

No, I live in a normal small mid-terrace house with a very small front garden. I keep two green box recycling containers in a small niche I have created just inside the front gate which doesn't look messy at all and then leave the containers on the edge of my path on collection day (having transferred the plastic to the white sack of course). It is not exactly difficult to carry it through the house. As I said I make every effort to reduce the amount of plastic I have to recycle anyway and I strongly believe that is something we should all be focusing on.The problem with using lightweight plastic bin liners is that they would be blowing all over the place.I can't believe the Council would be suggesting the box with net system if the contractor could not operate it.

Helen Johnson ● 5315d

You clearly must live in a large home with a garden or a driveway or a side access.I don't and have no idea where a plastics box will go to accomodate the current volume of plastics that go in the current sack...which can be folded up until it's needed taking up no extra space which many of us simply do not have.A box wil have to go out on the pavement or balance on the wall as there is simply no-where to accomdate yet another box.Hardly nice for the street scene or users of the footpaths.When one thinks of the time it will take for an operative to remove the net empty the box and return the net with box afterwards, it's obvious that within weeks most nets will be damaged or lost and exactly how do you do that standing at the back of a truck with just two hands particularly on a windy day.If it were a good idea it would have been deployed widely- which it hasn't.Simplest of all, put plastics in to a lightweight white bio degradable plastic bin liner and tie it in a knot.

Michael Brandt ● 5315d

I for one would be perfectly happy with a rigid box with a net cover for recycling plastics. I make every effort to cut down on the amount of plastic packaging I have to recycle anyway so it would easily fit into a box. I assume the nets would be attached to the boxes in some way and that they have been tried and tested elsewhere. The present canvas sacks (not canvass as our cllr would have it) do not close well and there is always plastic blowing around on collection days. Boxes can be marked more easily and are easier to keep clean.

Helen Johnson ● 5316d

BenGood to hear from you even if i don't agree with mnost of what you say again. We Tories voted to accept the independant recommendations made by an outside body to increase the allowances of cllrs in Ealing. Labour voted against it and took the increase. That was 2006 when money was not as tight as it is now. I am paid £9,600pa to be a local cllr. If you think that is too much for me, feel free to say so. Your sggestion that the Tories never bothered to fill in the potholes does not stand any test of scrutiny. we invested more in our roads in 4 years(£25m) than labour did in the previous 12 years(£12m). Jason Staceys intervention at the time to make sure you were compensated for the damage to your bike was very well received by you at the time. You were full of praise for Jason to me at the time. The cost of putting up stickers of motorbikes on the existing signs on bus lanes was not huge. Also, during the trial there wasn't a single collision between a motorbike and bike during the trial. As far as stooping to the level you accuse me of being at, you wouldn't have heard of or seen the nets that is the topic of discussion here until one landed on your doorstep if I hadn't brought it to your attention Ben.That is an example of a poor administration Ben. They should be telling you this, not meAs an opposition cllr I will continue to criticise this administration when they make poor decisions Ben. That is part of my job. If you find this so boring, maybe you would find the playground at Mayfield more interesting Ben

Colm Costello ● 5316d

GeorgeMy attempt at your answersWhat is the life expectancy of a hair net and is it elasticated? I don't know. It could have a life expectancy of 2 years if tied on properly, 2 weeks it isn't What is the cost of replacement - plus the cost of delivery?I don't know, but will ask this question and others at overview and scrutiny when we call it in. Will the replacement net get blown away?I don't know How long shall we wait for replacements to be delivered? One to two weeks if they are in stockHow will missing nets be found after nightfall when people return from work? Again, George, I think you know this will be done with great difficulty as the nets are blackWill we pay for new nets?I doubt it. Will plastic black bags fly into the trees frightening the birds and me, The birds should be fine, I can't answer for you George. The plastics will blow all over the placeand will there be staff to remove the bags from the public trees?The roads will be swept once a week so if there are bags in trees, I'm sure the sweeper will do their best. Will our front gardens have to be re-landscaped to accommodate two boxes?That will be up to you George and others. Will more of our front garden plants be damaged? I don't knowHow shall we throw out extra plastics which do not fit into overflowing boxes. I have no ideaWill the refuse men now hurl not one but two boxes onto our front paths?Yes Will some be even left on the pavement as sometimes they are now?yes Will visitors fall over them?Hopefully not, but maybe Will Ealing be made to look even untidier on refuse collection days? The streets will be swept the same day as rubbish collection, hopefully after the rubbish is collectedWill the council’s insurers pay for accidents on residents’ front paths caused by negligent refuse staff under Health and Safety cover?If you can prove it is the councils fault, you might have a chanceShall we now see rows of refuse boxes adorning our residential streets because some will or can not lift the boxes unlike those light weight white bags which we can fold and put out of sight? ProbablyHow will the arthritic ancients bend down to release the nets and replace and secure them?I don't know George Will Labour make our streets shabbier than they are now and do they care?Yes and noHow much longer will it take the refuse men to pull back hair nets and how much will the extra costs be for this extra time that they spend doing perhaps thousands of hair nets per day? I don't know and I'm not convinced this has been thought throughWill people deprived of their nets produce make shift nets giving the men even more grief?Same reply as above How will burly refuse men handle hair nets?With care hopefully but not always probablyHas the Council consulted the Met Office to establish that London is getting windier?no Does the Council know that winds around high rise areas are fierce and blow upwards? YesHow much evidence is there that in narrow streeted high density areas that this idea works – let alone pays I haven't seen anyGeorgeI think i have tried to answer all your questions here. I did say in response to them in an early posting that they were good questions, but i didn't know all the answers. I thought most of them were rhetoricalAs far as my bringing up issues that you say were outside the scope of this thread, that is your opinion George I raised them because of how thoses decisions were made, and the effect they have on our finances. They were expensive decisions that cost the council taxpayer money which then has to be found elsewhere.Labour are claiming this decision is necessary because they have to make savings. If they didn't make such stupid decisions in such stupid ways, then they wouldn't have to charge you and others £40 to take away their garden waste or start a move towards forthnightly collections, which this is the beginning of. Run down the existing service, then say it has to be repalced. Finally George, you come on here regularly to slag off whoever is in power, which is your right, and have been very critical of Labour cllrs for not coming on here to defend themselves. Now you seem unhappy that i am on here. You say all i am doing is to garner support for myself and discredit stupidities engineered by other parties. As an opposition councillor, It is my duty to scrutinise what the council is doing. You have already forgotten who made you aware of the silly nets you find so daft. It wasn't a council officer or a Labour cllr George, it was me. Next time George, you might want to not shoot the messangerThanks for the questions, I will try to get answers at overview and scrutiny. In the meantime, The leader of the councils email address isjulian.bell@ealing.gov.ukShould you want to ask him to justify himself to you

Colm Costello ● 5316d

That is very sad response.  It throws the whole thread into mire and muck.

Charles Campbell ● 5317d

ColmIt is so boring to have Councillors coming on here and slagging off te other side in a bid to increase their popularity.  Do you really need to stoop to this level? I would rather you didn't regardless of my own view on the garden waste charge (which I have already made clear).Do you think it was really sensible of the Tories to allow motorcycles and scooters into Ealing's bus lanes? You wouldn't listen then to residents protests beforehand. So, you went ahead and changed the signage - at a huge cost - only to realise that it led to an increase of an accidents. Then, presented with the evidence and after the horse has bolted, you changed your mind milking the fact that you have listened to residents concerns to reflect policy. This wasn't sensible policy, but regardless of that, the Tories decided it was and went ahead with it. What is the difference?The Tories also voted for an increase in Councillor allowances. The Tories never bothered to fill in pot holes and were taken to court by a residents for not maintaining the highway properly. Jason Stacey ordered the council to pay me for a buckled wheel because they failed to maintain the highway properly. Another example of poor adminstration.It is so so boring. Tit for tat. It is like being back in the playground of Mayfield Primary School!

Ben Owen ● 5317d

ColmNot good enough at all.Like any politician you bang on about something because you wish to garner support and discredit stupidities engineered by other parties. In your last response you typically chuck in a few extras as well, which were outside the scope of this thread.  Normal political verbosities, which we are all cynically used to.I did not ask you to try and persuade the Council to change its mind. What I did do was to ask you personally to raise a list of questions and report back. Please therefore keep your eye on the ball.You, as a Councillor, have more access to Council officers than we do. So you are better equipped to meet the right people and unlike the public, you know the procedures.What we want to know is has the Council done its job properly in assessing ALL the avenues. If not we want you to tell us so that we/you can apply pressure so that they are thorough rather than not.So have you got what it takes to not only bang on, but actually to go and find out and then report back with all answers to all the questions?Yes or no please, and if yes when? And if no, why not?  Please be thorough in how you respond.

George Knox ● 5317d

GeorgeDo you believe they will listen to me or you.These are the same people who have completely ignored all i and others have said about their £5m car park in Southall they can't prove is needed, because it isn't. They are the same people who took Ealing homes back in house, without considering any other option at all. That was a £17m pa contract. They can come on here and justify themselves to you and the other taxpayers who will have to pick up the tab when it all goes horribly wrong. PS, you also have access to them too George. Contact your local cllr and ask them what their view is and what they are doing for you.

Colm Costello ● 5317d

I think  I've spotted a cost saving.Terminate the job of the daft brush that came up with this most stupid of ideas.Clearly, employing such daydreamers is both dangerous and costly to the taxpayer and the reputations of councils.!

Michael Brandt ● 5317d

This will turn out to be the biggest waste of money if it becomes a reality, plain stupid!!

Declan Devine ● 5317d

So, as a Councillor with access to the relevant parties, why don't you go and have  a chat with them, look at their written options, and report back?

George Knox ● 5317d

Thanks for the spell check George and for pointing out all the obvious problems with this daft new plan. I can't answer most of your questions and I bet the council can't either. The problems you pointed out will all individually and collectively make recycling harder.The result will be fewer people recycling and more waste going to landfill, costing us all more money.

Colm Costello ● 5318d

What is the life expectancy of a hair net and is it elasticated?  What is the cost of replacement - plus the cost of delivery? Will the replacement net get blown away? How long shall we wait for replacements to be delivered? How will missing nets be found after nightfall when people return from work? Will we pay for new nets? Will plastic black bags fly into the trees frightening the birds and me, and will there be staff to remove the bags from the public trees? Will our front gardens have to be re-landscaped to accommodate two boxes? Will more of our front garden plants be damaged? How shall we throw out extra plastics which do not fit into overflowing boxes. Will the refuse men now hurl not one but two boxes onto our front paths? Will some be even left on the pavement as sometimes they are now? Will visitors fall over them? Will Ealing be made to look even untidier on refuse collection days? Will the council’s insurers pay for accidents on residents’ front paths caused by negligent refuse staff under Health and Safety cover?Shall we now see rows of refuse boxes adorning our residential streets because some will or can not lift the boxes unlike those light weight white bags which we can fold and put out of sight? How will the arthritic ancients bend down to release the nets and replace and secure them? Will Labour make our streets shabbier than they are now and do they care?How much longer will it take the refuse men to pull back hair nets and how much will the extra costs be for this extra time that they spend doing perhaps thousands of hair nets per day? Will people deprived of their nets produce make shift nets giving the men even more grief? How will burly refuse men handle hair nets?Has the Council consulted the Met Office to establish that London is getting windier? Does the Council know that winds around high rise areas are fierce and blow upwards? How much evidence is there that in narrow streeted high density areas that this idea works – let alone pays?Is the Director of Environment and the relevant Cabinet Member stupid or have I missed something? Does the Director get a bonus and why? Has the Council noted when there was a proposed change to waste management (which affects all of us) that there was a public consultation when some 19,000 people participated? Can’t see one now. Oh dear!Colm. Kindly note the spelling of the word “separate”.

George Knox ● 5318d

Is this for real?  I've had enough trouble getting my white canvas sack back when I get home at 6pm, I'll have no hope of getting this back.

Emily Heath ● 5318d