Vermin fears over lockdown closure threat to waste centres

A councillor said he fears that a controversial change to bin collections risk attracting vermin to local streets if a lockdown was to close dumps again.

News last year that the council’s waste transformation programme would see the grey and blue bins collected every four weeks instead of fortnightly was met with an outcry, including an online petition against the changes signed by almost 7000 people.

Officials presented a paper to a special meeting of the council’s environment and housing committee last Wednesday which they pulled together the household waste and recycling service’s normal procedures and new measures into one policy.

However, councillors wanted further details and agreed to defer the report until their February meeting.

During the discussions Bannockburn ward Alasdair Macpherson queried a section of the paper which suggested if people had excess recyclable or non-recyclable household waste they would be encouraged to take it to the waste centres.

Councillor Macpherson said it couldn’t just be assumed that would be the case if there was a full lockdown like last March.

He told the meeting:“i’m not satisfied that if this policy is implemented and there is a full scale lockdown that there’s a solution for overflowing bins.

“There’s a huge risk of vermin if we have black bags piling up and we can’t assume if this virus gets completely out of control, which it may do, and no one can get down to Polmaise, what do residents do with their rubbish.”

Officers hope to introduce the new proposed household waste and recycling collection policy from February 2021.

The council is also looking to introduce a £35 permit (per bin) for brown garden waste bins, although 100 per cent concessions will apply in some cases.

The service changes also include: four-weekly collections of grey and blue bins after July 2021; and the removal of kerbside glass (box) collections from July 2022, upon implementation of the National Deposit Return Scheme.

The council argues it will reduce the amount of waste sent to landfill, increase recycling rates and improve service provision.