War on Waste - is it Armageddon?

Bursting bin bags everywhere -Is this the future?

In April Camden’s new waste 

contract comes in to force.

This has caused widespread

concern in the north of the

Borough with the flames

fanned for political reasons

with talk of "bin bias". This
will run on possibly until
the next Council Elections
in May 2018.


Admittedly it is our area (as well as NW3 & 5) who will see their weekly “general waste” collection go from weekly to fornightly (recycling remains weekly) and this will indubitably bring problems.

The fact that Camden Council is performing very poorly in achieving its recycling targets (and has even fallen back since the days of the Lib Dem led administration 2006-10 ) plus the need to cut costs has led them to consider a new strategy coinciding with a new waste contract. The theory being that if you encourage people to recycle more, you can reduce the amount that goes to landfill and the number of times you have to pick up general waste thus reducing cost.

The strategy is laudable but the way Camden proposes to implement it is extremely ill-conceived and the poorly thought out communications are only making it worse. At present it is difficult to see how it can work without costing a lot more, leaving much of the Borough in a mess and annoying many of its residents.

To make it clear – most of the North of the Borough – except for housing estates - are proposed to continue weekly recycling including food waste while “general waste” ( ie everything else) will only be picked up once a fortnight.

In most of NW6/2 the average property has a front outside space barely big enough to hold one bin, let alone several where the house has been subdivided into flats. But the Council has waved a magic wand over such streets and declared: “homes chosen for fortnightly pickups have large outside storage spaces so rubbish will not spill into the street".

This, not to put too fine a point on it,  is “rubbish”!  But the Council is prepared to be “flexible” – or so it says. I recently met a group of concerned local residents with officers who talked through potential problems with them. You can accept a new general waste “wheelie” or opt for orange bags which you can continue to store in a regular rubbish bin.  If you have young children, please note, nappies can be collected separately while if you are vulnerable or elderly you can have an “assisted collection” and you don’t actually have to put your bags/bins etc on the pavement.

The problem will arise chiefly from those multiply occupied properties with short term tenants who will not know or understand the rules and just bung everything into the nearest bin or leave bulging carrier bags by the bins. This could certainly lead to a build-up of uncollected and festering rubbish, as some people believe and it will need a great deal of time/better information /education for landlords and letting agents as well as tenants.

So will the new contract lead to a rubbish apocalypse? Better levels of recycling at lower cost? Or just a proportion of disgruntled residents who – like most of us – dislike change? Time will tell!