Kentish Gazette Canterbury & District
Bin bosses: We’re doing our best…
Exclusive “spy-cams” will check on emptying
lstafford@thekmgroup.co.uk @LowriStafford Waste collection bosses have admitted hundreds of bins are being left unemptied across the district each week – and they must do better.
Canterbury City Council and contractor Serco say they are not proud that an average of 232 are neglected by binmen each fortnight.
But they say this figure equates to less than 1% of the 300,000 bins they empty, pointing out that the vast majority of residents are receiving a good service.
Serco won the £40m contract to collect the district’s bins for the next eight years in October.
The new system, which requires most households to separate their waste and recycling into six bins and containers, has been gradually introduced over the past two months.
But as the bins have been delivered, Serco and the council have been inundated with calls from residents complaining that their bins have not been collected – some for several months.
The Gazette has reported the experiences of several residents, who criticised late collections, rubbish left strewn across the pavement by waste crews and an inadequate response from the council and Serco to their complaints.
They included Thanington resident Richard Doyle, whose rubbish had not been cleared since Easter and Chartham foster mum Carolyn Hoare, who branded her mounting pile of uncollected waste a health hazard.
This week, the city council’s head of neighbourhood services, Larissa Reed, described the collection issues as unacceptable, but says they were not unexpected during the initial introduction period. She said: “Missed collections are a real problem. We’re not proud In-car technology or “spy cams” installed in the cabs of refuse lorries will reduce the number of missed collections, according to Serco’s contract manager.
Geoff Dunne, who is responsible for the waste contract in the Canterbury district, says the devices will be fitted next month and will feed information back to Serco’s headquarters about why bins have not been emptied.
It will record information such as whether or not a bin has been put on the roadside for collection, or if recycling has been contaminated with nonrecyclable waste.
He says: “If the resident then complains that their bin has not been emptied, the team can use the technology to find out why.”
Mr Dunne explains that collections can be missed for a variety of reasons, including bins being left out of the view of collection crews, or flooding that closes a road. of it and Serco aren’t proud of it either.
“Having said that, our roll-out is good. We’re doing well – especially compared to other councils in the county – but we have to resolve the situation for the people we are inconveniencing.
“We’re not getting away from the fact that some residents aren’t getting the service they should.”
She said many of the collection issues were due to residents’ failure to put their bins out on time, or to sort their waste properly.
But she expects the problems to die down once the system is in full swing and residents become more accustomed to it.
Mrs Reed also said Serco would have to pay “significant and onerous” penalties to the council – and even give donations to local charities – if collections are
He also says binmen are not allowed to take away mixed-up recycling or rubbish that is stuck in the bottom of bins, but admitted that some collections are missed purely down to human error.
When rubbish is not collected, crews will leave tickets on the bins to explain why and give advice. missed without good reason from next month.
She said: “We would rather have all the bins collected, so we are paying for a service that people are receiving. But we have written a contract that is hugely onerous on Serco if they get it wrong.”
Responding to complaints that residents are not being listened to when they complain about collection problems, Mrs Reed said: “It’s not that we don’t listen. It’s usually because the problem hasn’t been resolved. But we can be better at going back to people to explain why.
“We need to look at what the issue is and report back to the residents. We also need to be more probing with our questions when people contact us, so we can establish what the problem is.”