New refuse collection - inefficient? Post Reply

[schoolgatesmum]

The council contract for the refuse collection has changed and started this week. I just turned into my road and saw the refuse lorry but thought I'd just drive and wait as it doesn't take long for the lorry to go down the road. How wrong I was! The lorries now collect both the refuse and the recycling which seems sensible however there were only three binmen - and that included the driver! So the driver has to get in and out of the lorry each time to help the other two men. And they were so slow. i'm sure before there were about six people and they seemed really motivated and working as a team and so got down the road really quickly. It doesn't seem to be a better system and the men didn't seem to be particularly motivated - I wonder how many people have lost their jobs as a result of this new contract?

[sezwedz]

Ours and the surrounding streets are still sitting there, and now scattered all around from the foxes etc. Not efficient at all, why did they change it?? Thought the other guys did a pretty good job!!

[supergirl]

Gosh, i totally agree! They had guys to walk the street to put the bags out, while the others were putting them in the truck.
Now, maybe we just need to see a few weeks to see if rhey work out thr new system?
But have you seen the new partition of the borough? Some areas seem to be quite small while others are huge it is a wonder how they ll manage to collect such big areas with one truck in one day?!
Also now our entitlement is 3 rolls of orange bags a year! I dont know for you but i think 3 rolls is very little for a family of 4.
Why did they change? The guys on my street were nice guys snd hit for my children (we always had to watch the truck!)

[mrs_pavlova]

I spoke to the bin men in our road this morning, and they said they were doing a quick collection only today from outside everyone's gates, as it's all changing over. They will collect from inside gates doing a full collection from Friday.

Seemed very friendly and efficient to me! Let's give them a chance!!!

[schoolgatesmum]

I don't have a problem with the refuse collectors themselves - they always seem very pleasant and do a very good job. My worry is that this new contract has been given to a different company (again) which has probably won the contract offering "efficiencies" (read "cuts"). One of the other times the contract was changed, the new company told everyone that they had to put all their bags (recycling and black bags) on the pavement or they wouldn't be collected (saved time and therefore money). Mayhem - foxes loved it. They soon had to change that. I await to see how this new contract pans out......

[sezwedz]

So after looking at the councils website, it seems from the 1st of April some streets have at there refuge day changed. Attached is a link to find out when your rubbish will be collected.
http://www.wandsworth.gov.uk/site/custo ... _clean.php

[gwin]

Our rubbish is still sitting there, my neighbours was taken!

[BabyB]

This thread helped me understand why I saw 3 foxes prowling around this evening as all trash is still on the pavement, along with the rest of the streets around us! Super efficient change! What is this... Naples? Where do our 50percent taxes go? By the time they collect on Friday the garbage trucks will be out of gas due to the strikes! Bah!

[schoolgatesmum]

It's not income tax that pays for refuse collection, it's council tax - and ours is the lowest in the country. I guess you get what you pay for.

[Goldhawk]

I am wondering when they will collect the rubbish given the Easter Bank Holidays
Our collection day has switched from Mon to Fri with no collection since Monday 26 March
Seems unlikely we will get a collection tomorrow

[GillNic]

It's not been handled tremendously well, has it?
For a start I think it's ridiculous that with all the wasteful useless junk mail we get from the council, we got NO flyer through the door to inform us the bin day was changing. It's not just me who missed it - our street and all the streets around us had bins perched in anticipation on the pavement for days...what a mess once the foxes got to them. One flyer through each door would have prevented that messy mix-up.
We are also still unsure what the protocol is for bags - we can't leave the black ones out overnight, did it once and the result was disgusting. Are we allowed leave them in the green wheelies?
And 3 orange bags a year is crazy, aren't we supposed to be encouraging everyone to recycle?? What's the point in limiting people's ability to recycle? I already think the range of what they recycle is very poor compared to many countries in Europe -- ie ALL plastic should be in the orange bag to recycle, etc.

[dancingqueen]

With regards to the orange bags - you can get more rolls of them from the Library on Northcote Road. They are near the reception desk on the ground floor for people to help themselves when they need another roll.

[calgary]

Balham Library on the high street beside Waitrose also has extra orange bag rolls on the ground floor.

[clapset]

The council claim to have saved 1m pounds ... Where has it gone?

The foxes are vermin and need culling.

The council tax is the lowest in the country is not any form of argument. It should be less!

The council used internal marketing to decide how to roll out the change - they failed unequivocally and should be sacked.

The councillors spent most of their last meeting agreeing the wording of a congratulatory note to the queen. Good for them!

My car now costs 120 pounds a year to park outside my house. Why?

I have nothing good to say about the council.

[emmakl]

I am fuming!!
We were missed on Thursday - the rest of our road was cleared but not us... so I rang the council and was promised that it would be collected on Friday. When I pointed out that Friday was a bank holiday and asked if they were absolutely sure as we were going away I got pretty short shrift from a not very nice American lady... So, off we went with the assurance that it would be collected 'without fail' on Friday.

And of course we got back yesterday morning, my son's birthday, to find that it hadn't been collected and the bags on top of the green bins had been pulled to pieces by foxes. Another call to the council and I was told that they NEVER collect rubbish left in green bins! Well, we moved here in July last year and they have always taken the rubbish out so we didn't have exactly this problem! Same goes for the lady who used to live here, so this was the first time I had been told they wouldn't. As I had family coming yesterday afternoon I put my foot down and said I wanted it to be collected yesterday or we would load it up and take it to the tip ourselves (great way to spend my youngest's second birthday!) and I was told it would be collected yesterday afternoon 'without fail', but that I had to take it out of the bins. So I did.

And it wasn't collected.

I have just been outside taking photos of the carnage and will be taking them down to the Town Hall this morning. After spending an hour clearing up the same mess yesterday I am far from amused.

Fair enough if they needed to put a new system in place, but was the week before the Easter Weekend really the best time to do it?!!