A council boss explains why “thousands” of bins have not been emptied following changes to recycling

Richard Evans, local democracy newsletter

The chief executive of the council, which introduced the new recycling system this month, admitted it had “underestimated” the time bin and recycling rounds would take as “thousands” of collections were missed in the past two weeks.

Denbighshire Council chief executive Graham Boase has now apologized to residents on behalf of the council and said the authority is doing everything it can to ensure bins are emptied.

Mr Boase denied that Denbighshire had a rat problem and argued that the county’s new Trolibocs system was the right thing to do as the recycling system would reduce costs and increase funding.

He also defended councilors’ complaints that Denbighshire’s head of recycling and the councilor responsible for the portfolio were on holiday during the first week of the introduction.

The council unveiled its new Trolibocs system, which collects paper, plastic, metal, food cartons and glass, on 3 June.

Denbighshire now expects residents to separate items themselves.

Non-recyclable ‘black bin’ collections are now made every four weeks as opposed to the old fortnightly system, while a weighted hessian bag is used for the cardboard.

Problems

Mr Boase said: “The first thing I want to do is apologize to Denbighshire residents who missed out on the collections.

“While rolling out our new system we ran into some issues and problems which resulted in people missing out on collections. I am sorry for that. I understand the concern and upset it is causing residents. At the same time, we also take care of employees and managers and we want to put things in order. It is a heartfelt and sincere apology for the upset and concern we have caused by not choosing.

“We don’t have the exact numbers, but if we have 43,000 households to sample from, the vast majority have their collection in line with the collection schedule, but when you get to the 5% or 10% that don’t have t — and I don’t know the exact numbers, but let’s take this as an example – 5% or 10% of 43,000, you’re getting into a lot of real estate, right?

“So the majority did well, but we had some problems with the minority. But we accept that this is a significant minority who run into thousands of households where the waste has not been collected.”

Rats

Asked if reports of rats had increased, Mr Boase said no.

“Absolutely, categorically, no, we don’t have a problem with rats,” Mr Boase said.

“Now we don’t get any more reports of rats than any other report of rats on a regular basis.” We do not regret the decision to implement this. This new system is just the thing.”

He added: “The problem with the new system is that – when you’re rolling out 43,000 homes, in a variety of rural areas like the down south of the county compared to some of the urban areas in the north – the reason we’ve missed collections, some rounds have taken longer than we thought they thought they would last.

“This is partly due to the extra recycling our residents have done. So the wagons filled up maybe more than they were going to, which means they have to go back to the depot to be unloaded to go out again.

“We probably underestimated the time needed to complete the various laps. There were a few other minor issues, but that’s the overriding issue. We don’t regret it. It’s the right thing to do. The separation of our recycled materials will result in a much better product that we can sell, and we will sell it because it is more valuable recycled material.”

Mr Boase thanked recycling staff at the site, who he said were doing a fantastic job, and was concerned the negative social media activity was not affecting their morale.

Holiday

The chief executive also responded to criticism that the head of the recycling service and the cabinet member responsible for recycling, Cllr Barry Mellor, were both away on holiday during the first week of the rollout.

Mr Boase explained that both the head of department and a cabinet member had booked “long-term leave” arranged long before the roll-out – with the head of department not having time to attend the D-Day memorial service.

Ruthin councilor Huw Hilditch-Roberts said he was pleased the chief executive had apologised, but claimed unemptied bins and uncollected recycling were affecting the mental health of Denbighshire residents.

“I am pleased that the Chief Executive has apologized for the huge problems with the bins over the last two weeks,” said Cllr Roberts.

“I am still concerned that I have houses in Ruthin that have not had a collection for two weeks and I urge them to make this their priority. I have a lot of sympathy for the workers on the ground with the work they are doing in very difficult conditions and I sincerely hope that they will be able to rectify the situation as soon as possible.”

He added: “I wasn’t personally involved in the planning but at the end of the day you can only measure results and we’ve gone from a situation where all the bins in Denbighshire were consistently emptied and now they weren’t. That is the evidence before us.

“I’m urging the council to stop because the mental health of some people who don’t have their bins collected is affecting them and it’s really important that Denbighshire and the management team get this right.”