I moved here from Haringey, where we had a landfill wheelie bin which was a much better way to store rubbish until the whole lot was tipped into the truck. We also got a bin for recycling, a bin for putting food waste in for composting and regular street collections for large items and garden waste. I was really shocked when we moved to Wandsworth at the poor waste collection (and that was before these changes). That said, Haringey has one of the highest rates of council tax and Wandsworth has one of the lowest so, as someone else has said before, I suppose you get what you pay for!

I think the recycle level in wandsworth is very poor compare to some other boroughs in greater london. In greenwich, they have compost collection, recycle and other bags. They can put all plastics in their recycle bags.
I remember asking the same question in a thread for the leader counciller, being given an answer that was really not saying anything concrete and now nothing. I think wandsworth has no will to really engage with the recycling and to instill some good changes in our living habits. Until then, all we have is 3 rolls each or luck at the library. Very poor indeed.

Another thing to note is that although the libraries are supposed to be supplying extra orange bags, demand is very much higher than supply and the last three times I've been to the library (which is hard enough to get to since they've cut the hours) there haven't been any left! Our recycling is now having to go in the landfill bags, but it's the only thing left that we can do - there are only so many orange bags I can borrow from other people since we all have the same issues.

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?!!

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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!

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

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

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......

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!!!