Bin budget overspend is ‘a load of rubbish’
Overspend is terrible It’s a mystery to me A load of rubbish Doing their jobs for them ‘No excuse’ for £1.2m bust on spending
Leonard McCool Violet McCool Guerrino Franchitti Cathy Williams
The Wishaw Press revealed last week the North Lanarkshire Council’s much heralded new waste collection and recycling scheme is a staggering £1.2 million over budget.
Our exclusive figures, obtained by this newspaper through a Freedom of Information request, revealed that although the planned cost of the scheme until mid-February was £878, 500, within a year the council had spent a massive £2.09 million. That’s £1.2 million over budget.
We took to the streets of Wishaw to find out what council tax payers think of the massive overspend on waste collection and recycling in North Lanarkshire.
And the consensus was: “What a load of rubbish!”
“Like most people, I have an issue with the bins,” said Cathy Williams, of Wishaw’s St Mary Crescent.
“I live in a wee courtyard and have nowhere to put the bins. The way I look at it, we are doing their jobs for them so there’s no excuse for going over a million over budget.”
Guerrino Franchitti, of Wishaw, agreed. “That’s a load of rubbish,” he said.
“At the end of the day, everything goes in one place. I’ve seen it happening. The man who comes to empty the bin looks to see what is in it. What happens after that is a different story.”
Leonard McCool, of Motherwell, isn’t convinced that current recycling practices are economical.
“I think the overspend is terrible. What I don’t understand is where the recycling stuff goes. China has cut back on that and there is no-one else to sell it to. It’s all very confusing. I have two brown bins, a green bin, a blue bin with a green top and another bin for paper – too many bins.”
Wife Violet, who is happy for Leonard to take responsibility for their household’s waste management and says she doesn’t have a clue which bins should receive which waste.
“Last night, we had fish and chips. What bin do you put polystyrene in?” she wondered.
“It’s a mystery to me.”