Tories’ bin claims load of rubbish, says Labour
THE number of bins Bristolians have to put out each week has been used in publicity material by the Conservatives – but Labour has hit back saying the figures simply aren’t true.
The national Conservative Party included Bristol in their ‘Your Future Under Labour?’ campaign, which has blitzed social media this week.
The Conservatives posted a picture of piles of bins and rubbish with the headline ‘Labour enforce 9 container recycling’, and a subheading which read: “Bristol Council is forcing residents to separate rubbish into nine different containers”.
There was no further reference to Bristol and its number of recycling boxes contained within the Conservatives’ new ‘Life Under Labour’ website pages, which the social media posts led to.
There are sections entitled “See what life is ALREADY like under Labour”, that include claims about Birmingham, Camden and Manchester – but nothing about Bristol.
Bristol Waste, the city councilowned domestic waste collection company, rebutted the Conservatives’ claim with a link to the guide on its website detailing how to sort recycling in Bristol. The firm replied: “This is incorrect. Bristol’s kerbside recycling system has five containers, which are a green box, black box, blue bag, food caddy and general waste bin.”
And the council’s cabinet member for waste and the environment, Cllr
Marley Bennett (Lab, Eastville) replied to the Conservatives’ tweet and said: “As Bristol’s cabinet member for waste, I can confirm this just isn’t true. But remember, there’s no need to separate Conservative leaflets from card - they can be recycled together.”
Cllr Bennett said: “Unable to make a positive case for why people should vote for them, the Conservatives are resorting to lying about the number of bins we have in Bristol.”
Most people in the city have those five mentioned by Bristol Waste and some pay extra to have a sixth bin to collect garden waste too.
But there are extra instructions for less common items that people might occasionally throw away, which Bristol Waste said can be recycled and so should not be put in the general waste wheelie bin.
Bristol Waste advises people to put a range of items such as batteries, shoes, spectacles, textiles and small electrical items in separate, untied bags inside the black recycling box, while anyone trying to discard unwanted or used engine oil is asked to put it in a sealed container next to the box, and car batteries should be placed next to the black box, but also outside it.
This extra advice formed the basis of complaints from residents of one street in Clifton last December, who claimed they were having to split their waste into 13 different bags and boxes.