Denbighshire County Council has responded to specific claims by a general election candidate about the new waste recycling system which he says has been “an unmitigated disaster” since being introduced on June 3.
Paul Penlington, who is fighting Clwyd East for Plaid Cymru, says that refuse across the county hasn’t been collected for a week, refuse workers are quitting due to the risks to their backs, the majority of new bin crews are now agency workers many of whom have already left due to the workload and that a local construction firm’s drivers are being asked to help drive bin wagons.
But the council refutes these claims.
Mr
Penlington said: “I objected to the implementation of this Trolibocs system
from the outset. Primarily due to the huge cost and the fact there was nothing
wrong with the existing system.
“The reality has proven to be even worse than I'd thought. Refuse across the county hasn't been collected for well over a week now, my own included, many bins have already been damaged by the weather and refuse workers are quitting due to the risk to their backs from the increased workload and constant lifting to head height.
“This unwanted imposition from Welsh Labour has already proven to be a costly failure, workers are at risk, our streets are an increasing mess and we are now looking at a 12% rise in council tax next year to pay for it.
“DCC have now contracted the collection of the old wheelie bins to a firm from Great Yarmouth, so there’s no commitment to local businesses and the claimed savings seem to be highly inaccurate to say the least.
“The councillors who pushed this through, in the midst of a cost of living crisis, despite public opposition should resign now in disgrace.
“The majority of the new bin crews are now costly agency workers, and a lot of them have already left due to the unrealistic workload. I have been informed the council are now so desperate they are asking a local construction firm’s drivers to help drive the bin wagons on a 10 am to 6pm shift.
“The pick-up timing previously was around 20 seconds from the pull-up to the bin, empty and move on, under this new system it's around two minutes. This six-fold increase in collection times wasn’t factored in and the electric wagons’ charge runs out before runs are complete.
“The loading hatches on the wagons require head height lifting for the crew but are too low to cope with the volume the wagon is expected to take. The rubbish going in builds up quickly into a mountain-type heap; the rubbish then cascades down and falls out further increasing the workload and reducing the time they can stay out.
“People dumping excess refuse into public bins is up by 60% with an increased need for more agency staff to deal with it.
“This system is a hugely expensive, unmitigated disaster and Labour-led DCC are now desperately trying to disguise that fact from the public. Incompetence is an inadequate word to describe this complete failure and irresponsible waste of public money.
“Yet the Labour led Cabinet insist on ploughing ahead to avoid embarrassing their colleagues in the General Election.”
A council spokesperson responded: “We have had zero staff resign because of this system or since it has been implemented or any musculo-skeletal problems caused by the work.
“The collection contract
for the old bins was secured via the contract award to IPL for the provision of
the Troliboxes – this was a subcontract arrangement that offered significant
cost reduction to the council.
“We do have a percentage of
agency staff, as we always have within the waste collection team, but the vast
majority of the team are direct employees. Requests to local firms for
assistance have not been made.
“Electric vehicles are not
currently in deployment by the service and we have no indication of rubbish
cascading out of the vehicle due to the manual handling processes involved.
“The 60 percent increase in
public bin waste is not a figure the council has calculated or released.”
* Meanwhile, in its latest general statement on the recycling situation the council says: Denbighshire County Council would like to sincerely apologise to residents for the impact on them of missed collections as we roll-out the new waste and recycling collection service.
"We would also like to thank residents for the efforts made by them to ensure that their recycling is sorted correctly and placed in the appropriate containers. These efforts have greatly improved the quality of the recycling materials collected and this is really appreciated.
"While the majority of recycling and residual waste collections have been completed as planned across the county, we accept that a large number of residents have not had a collection and that this has caused difficulties for them.
"We have experienced a number of issues which is to be expected with a service change of this scale and to get to grips with these, the following temporary measures are being put in place:
• We have brought in additional vehicles and staff, so more crews are out each day
• Extra shifts are being put in place so crews can stay out longer
• We will have crews out on Saturdays focussing on key areas which have been missed
• Staff from other services of the council are being redeployed to help with tasks to support the front-line collection crews.
"We are closely monitoring the situation and doing what we can with the resources available. We appreciate your patience, but also recognise your frustrations and apologise for the impact this has had on you. We expect that the difficulties will ease as the temporary measures set out above take effect and the new service is embedded.
"Information about all aspects of the service is available on the website, including how to report a missed collection, and regular updates are posted on Denbighshire’s social media accounts."
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