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Members have been writing to us about council plans for wheelie bins in some areas, though parts of the borough already have them from a pilot scheme. Our interest is to ensure that they don’t damage the streetscape and the wider environment through excessive or unnecessary deployment of plastic, especially of the large and/or dayglo variety.
The council circulated leaflets to 16,000 households in the borough announcing more wheelie bins and food waste containers. To date, there has been no suggestion of a public consultation process with residents before deployment, which hardly matches the philosophy of ‘Doing things with residents, not to them‘ listed against every council policy. There is a possible opportunity to reject them, but only after the fact, through an unpublished ‘reassessment’ process. Out would go your dustbins (if you have them) and in would come tall and bulky plastic bins – one for waste and one for recycling. You would also be given a smaller food waste container.
To take the food waste first – for the majority who do not have a compost bin, this container may be helpful. It would remove food from black bags and so reduce ripping and spillage. It can be locked to prevent animal access and the waste will be processed to make fertiliser. So far, so good.
The large bins are another matter. Not only are they much taller than a regular dustbin at about 1.1m, and therefore much more obtrusive above a wall or fence, they are also bulky and take room in a front garden. For residents who pride themselves on an attractive and green garden this will come as a blow. Where are the bins to go? Who is to pay for the necessary re-paving?
As the bins have to be wheeled out to be emptied their access has to be clear – no shielding them behind shrubbery. If you normally do not have a bin you would be required to have two. Bins would be the first thing that greets you and your visitors, and the ‘kerb appeal’ of your home and the whole street could be significantly harmed as the photos below show, reducing amenity, social and financial values, to the detriment of all – aside from an unspecified figure on the council’s bottom line.
The standard 240L dayglo green recycling bin is the largest size commonly available, and three – yes three – times the size of the a conventional 80L bin, which is about half the height, and one-sixth of the weight – empty. It can hold five bin bags, or the weight of a large grown man, as many a comedy sketch – or recent world speed record – confirms. The black ‘waste’ bin at 140L is nearly twice the size of a conventional bin. This represents an aggregate of just about five times the bin storage space you probably have now, and in a world increasingly short of space, and trying to reduce waste of all sorts, appears to send a very odd message.
If, as suggested, it’s the wheels (i.e. health and safety), that’s a significant motivation, then 80L wheelie bins are a standard available size. Half the cost, and half the plastic of the 240L standard offered too, though still 50% taller than the 80L bin you probably already have. The 18 month old pilot PAC report suggests that residents can choose appropriate sizes, but this is not stated in the publicity material, and no 80L option is mentioned.
In some conservation areas such as Brackenbury, wheelie bins have also been announced with little apparent pause for consideration of the word conservation. You require planning permission for a bike shed or store in your front garden, often smaller than a pair of these bins “Any new structure over one metre in height on a boundary adjoining the highway and over two metres in height on a boundary at the rear of properties would require planning permission.” Planning officers have even told us that enforcement action has been taken against such unsightly stores installed without permission, and for good reason. The council is committed to a greener borough, and yet here it is doing quite the opposite of encouraging planting in front gardens These are visually and functionally polluting lumps of plastic, as proposed, an overkill solution for a relatively simple problem.
Rather than introducing more plastic into our environment, should it not be turning residents’ sights onto a greener home? The local plan, which requires ‘high quality urban environment’ (DC1, DC8) would fall further into disrepute when such impositions are easily shown to contravene the council’s own guidance SPD, 4.23: ‘The retention and maintenance of planted front gardens will be encouraged and their destruction in order to create vehicular crossovers, access and hard standings [for bins?] will be resisted’, and 4.24, requiring bin storage to be ‘in proportion to the height of the boundary treatment’. Perhaps we now need garden walls higher than 1.1m ? The author of the PAC report appears not to have read the SPD, claiming that wheelie bins ‘don’t detract from the character and appearance of our Conservation Areas overall’. We disagree, and you should review photos below and elsewhere to help you decide.
Some streets will simply not accommodate bins. Banim St. houses, for example, have no frontages. Many houses in Brackenbury Rd and similar just have steps up to the door and down to the basement – no room for bins. Under the published terms, we would expect no attempt to impose them here.
Streets could end up looking like this, though the council says they won’t impose them where the only place to store them is on the street, so we hope and expect this not to happen. Please let us know it it does.
Following the introduction of the wheelie bin pilot in the north of the borough, at a Council meeting in January 2021, our former chair, Rosemary Mortimer, asked the following:
‘Wheelie bins may be regarded as intrusive and unnecessary in small front gardens. Whilst applauding Council policy to ‘do things with residents’ and a wish to improve borough recycling will the Administration commit to full consultation with residents before expanding its wheelie bin scheme?’
No such undertaking has been received. She recently asked how the council intends to engage with residents as the PAC report suggests, and in particular, whether wheelie bins are intended for the Brackenbury area. Cllr Holder, responsible for this policy, has not replied.
We can therefore only refer to the council’s FAQ and the above report, which says that they will only be provided in areas ‘where there is accessible space for the bins to be stored’, but that doesn’t necessarily chime with the ‘lived experience’ of members writing to us. The council also asserts that there’s some connection between provision of food waste caddies and wheelie bins. That case is not made.
The council must consult properly, street by street, and only change if agreed, possible and necessary, offering appropriate options – including sizes and appropriate colours, or using coloured tops (saving money and improving appearance), i.e. ‘doing with’. The report says that these bins improved the recycling rate from 26% (average across the borough) to 40% in the pilot, which may not be comparing like-for-like, and unless more carefully deployed than so far advertised, the cost in several respects appears excessive for the gain. There’s a good opportunity to create some real ‘social value’ here, which may be being missed.
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