Resident complains to council about "threatening" recycling leaflets

* The leaflet about which the resident has complained.

A Llangollen man has complained to a county council chief about “veiled threats” being made to residents over the way they are putting out their recycling - when he claims the crews themselves are leaving the bins in a mess. 

Denbighshire, which introduced a problem-hit waste collection system back in the summer, has just put out leaflets in the area which tell residents that if their containers are too full or too heavy or include items that shouldn’t be in it. Crews will place a sticker on it asking them to correctly sort its contents in time for their next collection.     

This has annoyed Mike Edwards who has written a letter of complaint to council chief executive Graham Boase, in which says: “Residents are requested to give up their time and asked to sort our household rubbish for recycling, but then the refuse crews come along and leave the trolley block containers in an absolute mess facing the wrong way and smaller bins e.g food bin inside one of the containers. The various bins are thrown everywhere. 

* The state the resident claims his own bin has been left in.

“I politely asked the crew to leave the trolley blocks how they found them and not leave them for me and other residents to tidy up, but this was totally ignored.

“I object strongly to threats of notices being posted on our bins if we have not filled our part of the bargain when they clearly cannot co-operate and fill their responsibilities.

“It’s extremely disrespectful for Council Tax Payers to be treated in this way especially when we have endured four months of utter chaos when this scheme was foisted on all Denbighshire residents without it being trialled in a manageable area(s) to root out problems and fine tune the scheme.

“So now the responsible department start imposing conditions upon residents with veiled threats if we don’t do as they want. It is clearly not a two way street.”

A Denbighshire County Council spokesperson said: "The picture demonstrates how our crews have been trained to stack the Trolibocs after collection. This method of stacking is best practice as it stabilises the containers in case of high winds. Placing the food caddy inside one of the other containers adds further weight to the whole Trolibocs unit to make it more stable. 

"The social media post and leaflets handed to residents are intended to help residents recycle correctly and explain why certain containers may not have been collected. They also signpost residents to their information booklet or the Council’s online A-Z guide.

"The information booklet,  which was distributed to households prior to the start of the new service, has a frequently asked questions section which clearly states on page 20 that if containers are too full or too heavy, or have items that shouldn’t be there, the crews will place a sticker or tag asking for it to be correctly sorted in time for the next collection. This information has also been available on Denbighshire’s website since May.

 

"Our waste and recycling crews must deal with issues arising from incorrect materials in containers. Unfortunately, if crews collect containers which are heavily contaminated, it compromises the whole load in the lorry which means there’s a risk that these materials will be rejected for recycling. One of the reasons for introducing this new system is to achieve Welsh Government’s 70% recycling target, but it is also the right decision environmentally. While the old system of collecting co-mingled recycling was easy to use, it did not lead to high quality recycling. Much of what was collected was contaminated meaning it could not be sold on.

 

"We are fully aware that many residents have been frustrated by missed collections over the past few months and we acknowledge that the roll out has not gone as we had hoped. We have apologised for this and we continue to apologise to any resident who continues to have issues. 

"The new system has already led to improved quality of recycling materials, but we must tackle the issue of contaminated recycling and we appreciate the efforts that Denbighshire residents are making in this respect. The new system, which is in line with many other local authorities throughout Wales, is the right way forward, not only to hit our recycling target, but more importantly it is better for the environment. By recycling in this way, more of the materials we collect will remain in the UK to be recycled which significantly reduces our carbon footprint."