Ericathephantom’s Weblog

With councils urging its residents to recycle, why is this still such a difficulty?

Most areas in the UK have some kind of recycling scheme with coloured bins or boxes collected fortnightly, however, this can still somehow be complicated due to rules and regulations.

Binmen were once people you would say hello to in a morning, now they appear to be public enemy number one with regards to recycling and not taking people’s rubbish.

For example, in Perry Barr, Birmingham, residents don’t even have bins to put their rubbish into. Rubbish has to be left in black bin bags on the pavement as well as recycling in the colour coordinated boxes. One frustration amongst residents is that binmen refuse to collect the backs if they aren’t black bin liners or they have rips in them.

Amy Galloway, a student resident of Perry Barr said: “ We leave our rubbish in bags outside to be collected. However, in the night cats tear open the bags and in the morning the binmen refuse to collect them.

We have a small round bin that we put out, not provided by the council, to help. But the binmen also refuse to collect anything not in bags out on the pavement. Are they just lazy or are they council drones?”

Lisa Collie, another student in Perry Barr added: “They also leave behind recycling that has fallen out of the boxes overnight on the street when they could just as easily pick them up. They just don’t care because they know by law they don’t have to pick it up. We have a problem with rats and stray cats in the area and this doesn’t help.”

Earlier in February this year, Red Dwarf star Daniel John-Jules (who played ‘Cat’) was arrested for threatening binmen with a samurai sword after it is believed they refused to collect his rubbish. Blogger “Jantar: ‘Glob-a-log” takes on, as always, a satirical, humorous tone:

“Yes, if you ever have had to deal with the professional obstructionists who call themselves civil servants, from your local bin man to the director general of the Post Office, then you can sympathize with anyone who’d crack when one of these zombified no-men gets in their face just one time too often.

Indeed, even the chilliest of chill-out cat could lose his cool with these obnoxious ‘just-following-orders’ & ‘more-tan-my-job’s-worth’ pests.”

Now, the council in the Craven area of North Yorkshire are asking residents to remove glass and cans from their bins to reduce the risk of staff being injured by repeated lifting. They state that lifting the rubbish is having a “negative effect” on refuse workers and asks residents to “take a lot of the strain out of the job for our staff“. This is another blow for binmen public relations.

Last Christmas, fewer people than ever were tipping their binmen over the frustrations surrounding rubbish collections. However, the binmen aren’t solely to blame. Senior organiser for public services, Justin Bowden said:

“Some of the new rules have been introduced in such a cack-handed way that people are fed up,” said senior organiser Justin Bowden.

“Binmen have suffered verbal and physical abuse where they used to get a friendly hello. That’s distressing for people who work hard all the year doing a difficult, dirty and tough job.”  (Source-BBC)