Thursday, September 29, 2005

BugBears - the Prequel

Peter is out and about in London fighting traffic wardens and talking to students. Another bug bear blog I'm afraid. This time it is about my local council. A few months ago I moved into a new flat down the road from where I use to live. At my old flat, I would recieve my one black bin liner and my one recycling bag each Monday. Throughout the week I would dutifully fill my recycling bag (and not so much in the black bin liner), pop it out on a Sunday, and hey presto, it was taken away on Monday morning, and I would recieve new bags.

Now I didn't expect this to change when moving only 200 yards down the road. But it has. For the worse. For starters, I am now rudely awaken at about 6am by the road cleaner. Now, I know they like to clean when there is little traffic round, but at 6am? I'm grumpy in the morning anyway, and this just makes it worse. Sometimes they don't take all the rubbish. Secondly, they don't leave any bin bags. At all. Not even one. My flat (and it is only one bedroom) is looking like a landfill site. I refuse to throw out anything that can be recycled, so my flat is rapidly filling up. 'Contact the council!' I hear you say, well I have. About severn times now. The first time I was sent bags in an envelope through the post, and was promised they would make sure I would recieve bin bags in the future. And I'm still waiting. The last email I had from the council was the beginining of September, promising a bulk delivery to me of 26 black bin liners, 26 recycling bags. Still waiting for that delivery.

Now, I thought councils had recycling targets that they wanted to increase? Okay, so I'm sure my contribution doesn't make a huge dent, but how many other people have complained to the council, and not had a response? Many people know how to recycling, and know what to do, but its no good if the council doesn't provide the bins/bags for people. Councils tend to have poor reputations with their local tax payers. I certainly don't think too highly of my local council at the moment. Wouldn't it be great if I was proved wrong by a council?