Agenda item

Ryan Henson presented the ‘Back off our bins’ petition.

The Executive Member for Environmental Sustainability responded to the petition.

Many thanks for taking the time to collect and present this petition which dates from March and April this year.

I think that it is worth making a few clarifications to some of the assertions made within the wording of the document. Firstly, the so called “disastrous new bin collection policy” was discussed and approved by the then Tory run administration of East Herts and was led by the then Tory member for Bishop’s Stortford Thorley Manor who has since moved his allegiance to Reform UK. The public consultation process was run by the previous administration in 2022 immediately prior to the debate and final decision at the Executive in October 2022. The main elements of the policy reflect the legislation passed by the previous Tory central government on Simpler Recycling legislation that is the law of the land. The current Green Lib Dem administration picked up this decision in May 2023. However, having said that this administration is fully behind both the central legislation and the East Herts policy decisions. This is the right approach. Within East Herts we currently throw away more than we recycle and this is unsustainable, the express intention of all these changes is to increase our recycling rates and therefore reduce the amount of waste that goes to be incinerated. This latter point is incredibly important as a carbon tax is set to be introduced on the flue gases of the incinerators that we use and that will prove to be a very significant additional cost to either HCC or the new successor Unitary Authorities but should in of itself drive further waste reduction initiatives.

The wording of the petition states that “From August, they are cutting bin collections to once every 3 weeks”, just for clarity, there will be a collection each week from each household. So, for example, week 1 the residual waste will be collected, week 2 the mixed card and paper will be collected, week 3 the mixed recycling will be collected. If you pay for the brown bin service, then this will be collected every two weeks. Food waste will of course be collected each week from every household.  Approximately 50% of households will have 4 bins to manage, the remaining 50% will by choice have a further bin making 5 for them to manage.

A point worth emphasising is that if residents forget to put out their bins, then there will indeed be a three week wait for the next cycle not the 6 weeks as quoted in the petition. This is what we as residents do as out part of the deal, we pop the right things in the right bin and put it out on the right day. That’s it. The council does the rest come rain or shine.

This administration is very aware of the discomfort that these or indeed any changes generate for residents and are very grateful for the positive comments that have been received. There’s no way of arguing that a wheelie bin adds anything to a garden or back yard and an additional one is potentially a nuisance if you have limited space. The upside of being a part of this change is the incredible positive difference increasing our recycling can have on our futures, all our futures.

Will things go wrong with the new approach – almost certainly. Things do go wrong, take this petition for example, out of the total 471 signatures there are 22 people who have signed it twice and 1 that has signed it three times. So, things can go awry. We are currentlyservicing more than 107k properties and so yes things may not go smoothly over the first few weeks. Our plea to residents is that we support the waste team in their endeavours and help make it the success that we know we will benefit from for years to come. The current changes will soon become the new normal.