Criticism of refuse service is rubbish

Dear Editor, Councillor Tom Johnston’s illinformed letter in last week’s paper is an attempt to make party political mileage from an issue that he has little actual experience or knowledge of.

The introduction of a new household waste recycling service was one of the most significant changes this council has introduced, affecting more than 100,000 households across North Lanarkshire.

A project of this magnitude will expect teething problems with its introduction of the service. This led to increased costs, which the council has openly stated and discussed through the infrastructure committee, which I chair. We have apologised to residents and, importantly, have been working to resolve those issues in order to deliver a quality service with the best returns.

However, those additional costs represent one fifteenth of the overall waste management budget and the overall cost is low compared to similar schemes implemented in other local authorities.

What Councillor Johnston fails to note because he has not bothered to visit our waste management depots, are the months of preparation and planning for the new service and the hard work and effort of our staff to deliver a complex service to every household, in every street of North Lanarkshire.

He also failed to highlight that, despite initial problems, our residents are recycling more and more of their waste using the new kerbside service. In the first six months of the service we have seen an increase in recycling of seven per cent and the quality of recycled materials is extremely high.

Rather than rant for political point scoring, his time would be better spent working together as a united council for the good of our communities, who we’re actually here to serve, and making this service work for our residents.

Councillor Michael McPake, convener of the infrastructure committee