The following definitive statement on green waste collections was published by the parish council and we are pleased to publish it here. We may add that any confusion that arose was first identified by Mr. Brian Lake who spent considerable time and effort attempting to clarify the situation. He, along with many others, only wish the residents of Wye to be treated as all other ratepayers in the borough. Whether the following statement leads to a satisfactory service and green waste collection remains to be seen. Although they have not yet made any public statement WyeCycle is most welcome to use the pages of wyeweb to put their side of the debate. We are sure that Wye wishes to retain its reputation as a leading centre of recycling.
ABC statement on waste collection in Wye
Wye Parish Council website
Date: Saturday 13 June, 2009
The following information was relayed to the Parish Council by the Head of Environmental Services at ABC
‘As you are aware, circumstances have changed over the last few months. ABC now offer no separate green waste collection and decided (after much reflection) not to operate a chargeable green waste service either.
We have, as you know, always supported WyeCycle’s recycling initiatives – which is why, originally, we agreed to operate an alternate-week refuse collection service in Wye, Brook and Hinxhill and give WyeCycle the equivalent cost that we would have paid our contractor on the other weeks. (i.e. for 26 weeks of the year, ABC pays WyeCycle the sum of 69p per household). This sum now stands at £19,734 a year.
We have also agreed, in principle, to continue to support WyeCycle and we are happy to do so in terms of referring bulk waste enquiries to you and not collecting waste identified for WyeCycle.
There are two issues, however, which have resulted in this e-mail and these are:
- It is important that our contractors (and our staff and the public) understand what the operational instructions are, and the latest series of e-mail and website exchanges have made it clear that there is considerable confusion about what is and is not happening.
- The second is the issue of our statement that ABC would not collect garden waste in Wye, Brook or Hinxhill. As stated previously, we said that we would continue with this arrangement “while WyeCycle continues to offer a viable service”. This agreement was made on the grounds of WyeCycle’s continuing sustainability, and this is something that has not been demonstrated.
As Head of Service I have a responsibility to deal consistently with all residents – including recyclers – and this is simply not being achieved at the moment. There are daily questions from the public and both our contractors and our staff need to know what the operational parameters are.
So, for the sake of clarity, I will confirm the following:
- ABC will not knowingly collect waste that is identified for WyeCycle.
- ABC agrees not to collect obvious green waste.
- We cannot, however, refuse to collect bin bags where green waste has been mixed in with the general residual waste: we do not have the resources to check through bags on a regular basis and if people choose to put out green waste or food waste as part of their residual collection, then our contractors will take it.
- ABC will inform WyeCycle of any green waste that is left out on the streets, but expect WyeCycle to deal with such waste in line with ABC’s normal operational requirements. In practice, this means that any incidents reported to WyeCycle before noon (1200 hours) need to be dealt with on the same day; incidents reported to WyeCycle after noon need to be dealt with by noon on the next working day.
We will keep these arrangements under review. If, after two months, they have failed to work, we will consider reverting to collecting all waste present on ABC’s normal collection days.
I hope that this clarifies the situation.
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