Cheadle and Gatley Lib Dems are moving
Your Lib Dem team for Cheadle West & Gatley Learn more
by Lib Dem team on 11 September, 2010
Update: please click here to see important information about bin collections for the week to 12th November 2010.
A few days ago I mentioned the changes to refuse and recycling collection coming in Stockport in November.
Those with wheelie bins in Stockport today will get a new black bin which you start using in November. This black bin is for rubbish you can’t recycle. It will be collected once every two weeks and replaced the bin bags we put out now.
Food waste does not go in the black bin. We keep weekly food collections.
We’ll all get a kitchen caddy and a roll of 150 biodegradable bags for food waste. Any food can go in it – cooked and uncooked, meat and veg. Those bags of food waste go in your green wheelie bin along with the garden waste. The green wheelie bin will be collected weekly.
If you don’t have a green wheelie bin now, you’ll get a small lockable green box for food waste, which will be collected weekly.
If you don’t currently have any wheelie bins, you won’t get a new one – collections will continue as now (apart from the new weekly food collection).
Around 80% of residents will also see their collection day change.
Here’s your chance to get your questions answered. I’ll make a start by answering some of the questions that have occured to me, or have already been asked by others. If you’ve a different question, just post it as a comment and I’ll find out the answer.
Why are we making the change?
The changes will be good for the environment and will save Stockport’s taxpayers a lot of money. To send a tonne of waste to landfill costs us £125. If we can recycle that tonne, we actually gain £25. If it’s green waste, it costs us £52.
So each tonne of paper that goes into the blue bin and not out in rubbish bags saves taxpayers £150. There are 250,000 people in Stockport – that’s a lot of tonnes of paper over the year.
Why will my bin day collection change?
80% of us will see our bin day change from November. That’s because Stockport’s moving to “zonal” collections. Instead of collecting bins across Stockport each day, the bin lorries will concentrate on a different area each day.
That saves money and time (because the binmen spend less time driving and more time collecting). It also makes it easier to ensure the streets are left tidy after bin day.
All our bins will be collected on the same day – those (like me) with split collection days will only have one day to remember.
How often will all the bins be collected?
The blue bin (paper, card etc.) is currently collected once a fortnight. That will stay the same.
The brown bin (cans, bottles) will go from fortnightly to monthly collection. The Council’s found that monthly collections will be fine for most people and it’ll save a lot of money.
The green bins are currently collected once a fortnight. They’ll change to weekly collections, and you’re food waste will go in the green bins as well as garden waste.
The new black bins – for everything that can’t be recycled – will be collected one a fortnight.
How will I collect my food to recycle?
You’ll get a green food caddy along with 150 biodegradable bags, to go in your kitchen. The caddy has holes in the sides and, in trials, were less smelly than normal kitchen bins (and had a 94% satisfaction rate in the trial period – these were not scientific trials though!). Every few days, or when the bag fills up, you just pop it in the green wheelie bin.
Can I put food in plastic bags?
No. This is really important. When the green waste (including food) goes to the tip, the whole load can be rejected if there are just a few plastic bags in. You can’t just buy any old biodegradable bag either. If you use all 150 (and most of us won’t), you’ll need to buy more of the right type. The Council will send you the phone number of the supplier.
Why? Because each rejected load costs Stockport taxpayers over a thousand pounds. That’s a lot of money for a plastic bag.
I don’t have a green wheelie bin – can I still recycle food?
Yes. In addition to the food caddy, you’ll get a 23 litre small food bin to keep outside your house. It’s solid and lockable, so animals can’t get into it. It’ll be collected weekly.
I’ve already got a black wheelie bin – can I still use it?
Some people in Gatley and Reddish came across from Manchester City Council and still have their old Manchester black wheelie bin. Stockport won’t collect rubbish from this bin. If you want it taken away, the council will do that at no charge, but you can’t use it.
I’ve already got a dustbin – what do I do with that?
The Council will take away your dustbin for free, if you wish. You’re also welcome to keep it.
Can I put out bags in addition to the black wheelie bin?
No. Once the black wheelie bins are in use in November, additional bags will no longer be collected. You need to put all your non-recyclable rubbish in the black bin.
I don’t want another wheelie bin!
I know not everyone wants another wheelie bin – though plenty of people have told me that they do. Sorry, but we believe the need to save taxpayer’s money and to do even better at recycling makes it essential. Most other councils already have wheelie bins for non-recyclable rubbish.
I’ve got pets. Where does their waste go?
Bedding, litter tray, animal faeces – all in the black bin.
I don’t currently have wheelie bins – will I get them now?
No. If you don’t have wheelie bins, you’ll get the green caddies and carry on using bin bags. All your councillors have maps showing every house in their ward, with a green circle if the property gets wheelie bins and a red triangle if not, so ask your councillors if you want to be sure. Your MPs have maps showing the whole of their constituencies, so you can also check with them.
I’ve got wheelie bins but can’t fit another one in
If you’ve got wheelie bins now, it means the Council believes you can have four wheelie bins. But mistakes do get made. You can ask for your property to be reassessed, but I can’t guarantee you’ll be given the answer you want.
What can I put in the food caddy?
All food whether cooked or raw, meat or veg – pretty much anything. The following are all fine:
What can’t I put in the food caddy?
You can’t put in packaging of any sort, plastic bags, large quantities of oil (i.e. oily food is fine, a bottle of oil isn’t) and liquids such as milk or juice.
What can I put in my black bin?
Hopefully as little as possible. Everything in your black bin goes to landfill and costs £125/tonne. But there’s a good deal that can’t yet be recycled and all that has to go in.
What happens if I put the wrong thing in the wrong bins
If the wrong thing goes in a recycling bin, the whole load can be rejected at the tip, costing taxpayers over a thousand pounds. We’re pretty good at getting it right in Stockport – very few loads get rejected at the moment – so hopefully it won’t be a problem.
However, it may happen.
If the binmen spot it, you’re bin won’t be emptied and you’ll get a “contamination” sticker on the bin. Your bin will be collected next time.
If it seems to be an ongoing problem, council officers will visit you to help you get it right.
Only if all else fails and you continue to willfully put the wrong items in the bins will legal action be considered.
Will I still get blue bags for my refuse?
No (unless you live in a property not suitable for wheelie bins). The black bin replaces the blue bags.
What can I put in my blue bin?
Exactly the same as you do now. Yes to newspapers, magazines, junk mail, catalogues, all envelopes,all cardboard, telephone directories, wrapping paper, greetings cards, drinks cartons and tetra pak cartons.
No to plastic bottles, platic bags and foil trays (if the foil tray stays scrunched when you scrunch it, it can go in the brown bin)..
What I can put in my brown bin?
Exactly the same as you do now. Yes to plastic bottles (please flatten the bottles if you can and please remove the lids – which go in the black bin), glass bottles,glass jars (please remove lids, which go in the black bin), drink cans, food tins, empty aerosols (please remove lids, which go in black bin), foil (must be scrunchable – if you scrunch it and it stays scrunched, it can go in).
No to any lids from plastic bottles, glass bottles or jars, plastic bags, plastic trays, plastic yoghurt pots.
Can I recycle nappies
Nappies can not be recycled and are therefore residual waste. Bagging nappies for the black bin should work fine, and reusable nappies are an alternative (several services to wash reusable nappies exist in Stockpot). Child minders have a legal duty of care to make adequate arrangements for their business waste and should not be using the municipal recycling and waste service for their business waste.
I may need extra bins – can I get them?
Large families (6 or over in the household) or those with recognised medical conditions will receive extra containers. Others can ask for extra containers – they will be visited by Community Recycling Officers to see if they are doing all the recycling they can and still do not have enough room. If they are recycling fully they can have extra containers (there will be a charge).
I get assisted collection – will that continue?
Yes. If you currently have assisted collection for your wheelie bins, that will continue and you’ll automatically get it for your new black wheelie bin.
What happens next?
If you have wheelie bins now, your new black bin and kitchen food caddy will arrive in October. The new collection will start in November. You’ll get more information from the Council well in advance.
21 Comments
if the food in the compost caddy is going to be composted how can you put meat and fish into compost when all gardening manuals tell you not to put cooked or raw meat and fish into compost? Will this not encourage rats at the site where the waste is composted?
Hi Garry,
I have a green cone in my back garden – like a compost bin but I can put any food in it, cooked or raw, meat or veg. It doesn’t attract rates and it breaks down into the soil.
The Waste Disposal Authorty’s new composting facility being built in Bredbury is an indoor In-Vessel composter, not open air and not open to vermin. The mixed food and green waste is being composted in what is in effect a giant bucket, inside an even bigger shed. It’s actually a lot more high tech than that with negative air pressure inside the building etc. The old just green composting was windrow (great big compost heaps under a big carport type affair, but open-air).
If I am confused,pity the large number of people who can’t read all that well and the elderly.
You say:- What I can put in my brown bin?
Yes to plastic bottles (please remove lids and flatten), glass bottles,glass jars (please remove lids), drink cans, food tins, empty aerosols (please remove lids), foil (must be scrunchable – if you scrunch it and it stays scrunched, it can go in).
No to any lids from plastic bottles, glass bottles or jars, plastic bags, plastic trays, plastic yoghurt pots.
SO – are you saying I have to take off the lids from things and flatten the lids? Or is it the plastic bottle that should be flattened? And how exactly does one do this if it’s a milk bottle?
THEN you (or SMBC to be precise) say no foil trays in the blue bin. However if foil is scrunchable it can go in the BROWN bin. If I scrunch up a foil container it definitely stays scrunched – SO can they go in the brown bin?
And what do we do with the lids – put them in the black bin?
I think one might have to study a GCSE in waste cycling to get it right!
Hi Estelle,
I guess the quick answer is that what goes in the brown and blue bins hasn’t changed and won’t change, so carry on doing what you’re doing now.
But to get specific on the points you raise (and I’ll amend my post to make it clearer):
– lids should always be removed and put in the unrecyclable waste (black bin)
– flatten pastic bottles if you can, not the end of the world if not.
– milk bottles go back to your milkman
– if a foil tray is just scrunchable foil, it can go in the brown bin
For anyone who is confused, Stockport has community recycling officers who are there to help.
Very informative!!
In recent times, the world is becoming cognizant about the hazardous effects of plastic bags on the environment.
Also PLA has been used to line the inside of Paper Cups in place of the oil based lining more commonly used, create Plastic ( bioplastics ) Cups, Cutlery, Carrier Bags, Food Packaging and even Nappies.
Thanks,
Hello..
I live in stockport and currently have a brown bin and a blue bin with a blue plastic sack for everything else. have just received paperwork telling me about even more bins to be delivered and quite frankly,i am very angry. There has been no consultation save for what the council call focus groups. You are simply enforcing this regime upon the residents of stockport. You charge us the same ever increasing poll tax and yet you save money by recycling AND make money by selling our waste. The only ones who are the losers are us mugs who have to pander to your petty rules and regulations and suffer the ugly site of battalions of multi coloured bins littering our streets. I have no room for your extra bins. They are YOUR bins not mine, I deny all ownership of them and they will remain out on the street. I will not house them on my property and i would advise all others to do the same. If you take them in and put your address on them,you are effectively taking ownership of them AND leaving yourself open to petty council fines for the various offences they will create i.e leaving them out/over filling/putting the wrong stuff in them etc
“Fred” – I understand how you feel, and I wish it were possible for every council in the country to consult every single resident before making these sorts of changes. It isn’t, unfortunately – it would cost a fortune and nothing would ever get done.
As for “petty fines”, it’s a last resort, but I hope you’d agree that you shouldn’t have to pay higher council tax because someone else refuses to use their bins correctly.
Not quite sure what you mean by “ever increasing poll tax” either. We haven’t had a poll tax for nearly 20 years in Brtain. The Council tax fell in real terms this year and will be frozen next year. This sort of change means more money for other services. That might be more for schools, or more PCSOs on the streets, for example.
OK fair enough..i appreciate that in the end,councils will enforce their policies regardless of consultation and also i agree that it isnt possible to consult everyone but again i ask,who were these “focus groups” and how does one apply to be involved? Again,i saw no publicity about focus groups.The truth is that councils know the public are so apathetic that they can more or less do as they like.
Poll tax.well thats a moot point. Call it poll tax,call it community charge,we are surely just talking semantics.
Please tell me why i should have to find space for four,yes four of your big bins on my property?
If you guys have a look on the Plymouth grove village development in Manchester, you will see a good solution. They have a number of recycling stations in the area consisting of larger colour coded dumpsters which are secured in a frame and into which the whole estate sorts their waste thus avoiding the need for every house to house 4 expensive German made bins which have used precious resources(oil?) in their manufacture. We all know how unsightly the battalions of multi coloured wheelie bins are,we know they litter the streets,are filled with stinking decaying matter in summer,are stolen,vandalised and set on fire. and sometimes used for criminal intent.
For any scheme to work effectively,there has to be involvement and engagement. We all know about how local authorities send their spies to examine bin content,when they are put out,when they are taken in and even bin tagging/charge by weight.
Maybe we should learn by best practice from other EU countries who presumably are implementing similar schemes in order to meet their EU targets on recycling?
Fred – First, I should say that Stockport doesn’t send spies to examine bin contents. The bin men will quickly check brown, blue and green bins to try and spot when there’s a contaminent in there (i.e. something that shouldn’t be) – but it costs taxpayers over a thousand pounds if a load gets rejected at the tip due to too many contaminents, so that seems fair enough to me.
The bins will save us money overall, and do you really think their manufacture is worse for the environment than the hundreds of bin bags each household would otherwise receive from the Council over the years of the bin’s life.
We do, of course, look at what others do – both in this country and abroad.
There’s a general issue with communal bins: the more difficult it is to recycle, the less people do it. I don’t think residents of Stockport would be too impressed if we said that all their refuse and recycling had to be taken down to a big bin at the end of their street instead of being collected from outside their houses.
Though you provide “information” The council leaflets provided no information to suggest families with 6 or more could have extra containers – if families are effectively recycling glass and plastic, then it is reasonable to suggest that a monthly collection is unreasonable. As it is not currently a law of the land that we are subjected to enforced recycling, I fail to see how, if challenged in a court of law, the council could impose fines on anyone. It would become clear that “consultation” did not take place, nor are individual circumstances taken into account because of course that would be too much of a costly exercise. I have four children we are probably considered a large family (6), I believe we pay enough council tax (over two thousand pounds per year) to warrant having our waste removed weekly by the council. My black bin, in my mind will be contaminated for two weeks as I have a child who wears nappies, in summer the stench will be overpowering (Urine and faeces). The council does not collect refuse weekly, it collects food waste weekly which actually will be composted and sold – not only cheaper for the council in collection charges but profit making at the other end. As a tax payer, can I please have a refund?
All this is a fantastic concept but i now have a full black bin (smallest out of all of them!!)a week from collection and i am told they will not collect the additional bags
Another poorly thought out idea.
Well the councils agents have now left some additional bins outside my home. I have to say that although i do not officially adopt and claim ownership/stewardship or responsibility for said bins,some of my initial concerns have been allayed. My initial impression was that i was to be given a full sized black bin,a full sized green bin,a food caddy for outside, an internal food caddy and a roll of bin liners. Howver i was given a smallest volume black bin and a small food caddy. This fits fine for me and i can live with it. I do have some sympathy for my neighbours however who live in flats,one up one down and each flat has the same. There are whole platoons of bins littering their frontages. In addition, the old bin collection day was monday and the new system started on Tuesday. This means that people still had bagged/mixed refuse in blue /black bags left over from the old system. many left it out on Monday=no collection. It stayed out until Tuesday=no collection as the staff only collected blue/green bins. We now have a situation where south reddish/Morgan place area is strewn with rubbish bags both blue and black bags left over from the old system.Will they be left to rot or do the council have a plan?
Also,i would like clarification on recycling plastics.
The council say we can only put “bottle” shaped plastic containers in the bin.
~Can they be more specific? surely it isnt the shape of the container that is relevant but what it is made of?
I have plastic containers which say they are recyclable and have triangles and various numbers of them. Can the council explicitly say what grade of material they want i.e do they want PE/HDPE/LDPE what triangle numbers etc etc etc..
As an aside,i think that the sale of disposable nappies should be outlawed in the UK if not the whole of Europe.
Hi Fred,
It is indeed the shape of the container the system works on at the moment for recycling plastics. There are many types of plastics and the Greater Manchester Waste Authority can recycle some but not others.
The concern is that, if we ask everyone to try and figure out which plastics can go in and which can’t based on the markings we’ll get more contaminents and less recycling overall.
The aim is to keep it simple – if it’s bottle shaped, it can go on.
We’re hoping that the range of plastics we’re able to recycle in Greater Manchester will increase before too long.
I can see that for simplicities sake we can say,well everything bottle shaped can go in….but my interpretation of that is that a “bottle” is any container for liquids/gels/solids (powders?) which has an outlet cap which could be used to decant the contents. In this respect,i would and have placed in the container such items as milk “bottles” and similar for edible/drinkable foodstuffs,bleach and cleaning materials,motor oil containers,garden materials such as pesticides etc.
I think that if people can understand the sophistication of the bin rota/collection system,they can also be told that we can accept ..enter here> list of plastic materials and triangle numbers.. Surely those residents who can take the time to understand,could then increase the volumes of recyclable plastics whilst those who cant,can default to the broad “bottle” descriptor?
That’s a fair point, Fred. As I say, I hope to see an expansion in the plastic recycling we’re able to do before too long.
as per Phil Cookes comment:-
All this is a fantastic concept but i now have a full black bin (smallest out of all of them!!)a week from collection and i am told they will not collect the additional bags
Another poorly thought out idea.
I would like to add that the additional bags were simply “adorned” with a sticker advising that they would not be collected, even though there was NO warning of the OLD collection stopping, the bags are now being left to rot outside my property, possibly causing a health hazard. Good to see that Iain Roberts has avoided responding to the original comment from Phil. Looks like he is “cherry picking” the easy replies.
This is disgusting when we pay an extortionate rate of council tax, for what???????
Also why has it taken SMBC approximately 21 years (in comparison to TMBC) to finally come round to the idea of wheelie bins instead of bags??????? again, simply disgusting and somewhat backwards!.
I’m not against recycling, but this has simply not been thought out and executioned correctly. It is in a roundabout way encouraging fly tipping, and I for one do not want to go down that road…..
Iain, a reply would at least be courteous.
Regards, Neil.
Hi Neil,
Thanks for the comments – I’m trying to answer comments when I can, and you’ll see if you look through the various posts that most points people have made have been answered.
So to go through your concerns:
– additional bags WILL be collected in the coming week (week commencing 8th November) to clear any backlog caused by the switchover.
– every household was sent a letter which gave the correct information about the bin changeover. Unfortunately, the sticker on the black bins gave misleading information, suggesting the old collection went on into November. The Council have apologised for the confusion.
– SBMC has stuck with bags up to now (which meant that people could throw away as much as they wanted and have the council collect it – something not true of many other councils). We wanted to get the recycling sorted out first – which is one reason why Stockport residents manage to recycle more than most other Greater Manchester councils.
– The challenge facing Stockport is that we want to recycle even more, because it’s good for the environment and saves taxpayers more money (£150 a tonne – and with over 100,000 houses in Stockport it adds up to a lot of tonnes).
If we carry on saying we’ll collect as much as anyone wants to throw away, we’re asking those who recycle more to subsidise others who choose not to.
The challenge is to get the balance right. We don’t want to penalise people who genuinely can’t avoid generating more rubbish than will fill a black bin, and so people can get a second black bin if they need it. But at the same time it’s unfair to most if we collect unlimited refuse from some.
These changes will help the environment, reduce landfill and save Stockport taxpayers over £600,000 a year (which means there are other jobs and services we’ll be able to keep as a result).
We can be rightly proud in Stockport of our record on recycling.
Hello Iain,
Could you clarify something for me? On my black bin, there’s a list of “no thanks” items. One of these is cooking foil which doesn’t seem to belong to any of the other bins either. Where should I put cooking/baking foil?
Thanks
Ian
Hi Ian,
Foil goes in the brown bin.
Do the scrunch test – if you scrunch up foil and it stays scrunched, it goes in the brown bin. If it pings open again on its own (e.g. yoghurt lids) it can’t be recycled so goes in the black bin.
Lain..
Like many people, i go to work and therefore leave my containers out bright and early and bring them in when i come home. If someone takes a shine to one of them and pinches it,how does it get replaced?