Greenwich black bin collections go fortnightly from today
Greenwich Council have joined most council’s in the country and gone to black bin collections every two weeks from today (Monday 27th February).
Other bin collections will remain weekly.
A council report in 2019 mooted changes which was covered on this site. A number of options were laid out with the hope of saving money and increasing recycling rates.
In 2019 the authority stated that only “67 of the 391 local authorities in the UK collect general waste weekly”.
Consultation followed in 2020 before changes were announced in June 2022.
One concern about extending collections centres around the high number of Homes of Multiple Occupation – or residential units converted to bedsits – that exist in the borough.
Despite brining in a licensing scheme, the number of landlords believed to have registered remains extremely low.
Two years after introduction only around 15 per cent were estimated to have join the register.
A shortage of new homes being built has seen many existing homes converted and subdivided which brings problems with parking and refuse without adequate measures to mitigate.
Since January 2023 I have already had two of my three ‘strikes’ issued.
The first was due to someone ‘contaminating’ my Green-Top bin *after* I left it by the kerbside to be collected (I ended-up spending half an hour of my morning clearing-out someone else’s rubbish out of it), I then got a second ‘strike’ for the same bin a few weeks later, this was despite it being emptied on the scheduled collection day as all it contained was one compostable bag containing food waste.
Being penalised because either others contaminate my bins or because the internal RBG processes are ‘broken’ is far from fair, and is likely to make matters worse not better (not to mention the anxiety and stress it creates for ‘rule abiding’ residents).
RBG needs to urgently review the borough’s approach to the implementation and enforcement of this scheme.