The Courier & Advertiser (Angus and Dundee)
Glass bins ditched because council’s collection vehicles are too large
Glass recycling bins have been ditched in two communities as the council’s new collection vehicles are too big to get to them.
North Queensferry and Burntisland have lost bottle banks as the lower carbon trucks are too tall to fit under height restricted bridges.
In North Queensferry they are too big for a railway bridge passable only to vehicles of 13ft 6in or less, so residents can no longer dispose of empties at the train station car park.
An alternative route from Inverkeithing has an even lower bridge at Jamestown, which is regularly used by furniture lorries and skip hire vehicles from nearby businesses.
North Queensferry Community Council chairman Iain Mitchell said the lorries must be “absolutely monstrous”.
The community council is to seek a solution to what Mr Mitchell described as an “immensely annoying” situation.
Mr Mitchell said: “It seems such a complete failure of foresight that public money has been spent on purchasing equipment which is unable to service the glass recycling point.”
The village’s other bottle bank by Deep Sea World is only accessible when the visitor attraction at the bottom of a narrow brae is open.
Mr Mitchell said: “If people can’t get to Deep Sea World during the day they will end up putting their bottles in landfill instead.”
A North Queenferry resident, who did not want to be named, worried there would be more vehicles on Old Kirk Road and Forthside Terrace.
She said: “All the people who walk or drive with their recycling to the station are now expected to go to the recycling bins at Deep Sea World, hugely increasing traffic on the single lane brae and through the village.”
Scott Ramsay, team manager at the council’s Resource Efficient Solutions, said the most effective and economic vehicles possible were needed to serve more than 300 recycling points and 11 household waste recycling centres.
He also said both North Queensferry and Burntisland had other glass recycling points.
He said: “We recently upgraded our recycling collection fleet with two new glass collection vehicles that have lower carbon emissions and a reduced carbon foot print.
“Unfortunately, as these are larger vehicles we’ve had to remove glass services at two of Fife’s recycling points due to the height restrictions.
“To compensate for the removal of the glass bins at the railway station car park we have increased the frequency of glass collection at the Deep Sea World recycling point.
“The town still has 7,680 litres of glass recycling provision per week, a figure that exceeds the minimum capacity set out in Scotland’s Recycling Charter Code of Practice.”