Rubbish rebellion
Mayor calls for boycott of recycling bins after council brings in MONTHLY waste collections
RESIDENTS are being urged to stop recycling in a protest against the first monthly rubbish collections in the country.
Trial collections covering 11,000 homes led to piles of burning rubbish and complaints about vermin.
So homeowners were shocked when a county council this week voted to roll out the monthly schedule to all households.
More than 4,000 people in Conwy, North Wales, signed a petition demanding the plan be scrapped and want a special meeting to reverse the decision.
Writing on Facebook, Colwyn Bay mayor Jeff Pearson asked them to boycott recycling.
‘I suggest we fight back by simply stopping recycling your waste for them,’ he wrote. ‘Put it all in the black bin leaving the green boxes empty.
‘That way the black bins will be spilling over on to the pavements for the seagulls to pull apart causing a mess for the bin men.’
The Conservative councillor later told the Daily Mail: ‘I am all for recycling, but four weeks is too long to leave the rubbish.’
With authorities ordered to ensure that at least half of household waste is recycled by 2020 or face massive fines, the impact of monthly collections in Conwy is being watched carefully by other councils across Britain.
Households in Conwy have one 240-litre black wheelie bin for general waste, three green recycling boxes and a green caddy for food waste. Parents of young children can also have a blue caddy for nappies.
All the recycling, food waste and nappy bins are collected weekly, but the black bin is currently emptied every three weeks – or every four in the trial areas.
Last month a proposal to extend the monthly pilot across the whole of Conwy, which is governed by a Tory and independent coalition, was rejected. But on Tuesday the council cabinet did a U-turn and voted in favour.
Yesterday residents of the seaside town of Kinmel Bay, which has had four-weekly collections for over 12 months, branded the plan ‘a disgrace’.
With more than a week to go before the next black bin collection, wheelie bins in many streets are already overflowing, with lids propped up at a