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Gloucestershire Live readers have spoken out against changes made to Gloucester City Council’s recycling collections.
After this website reported that residents had been left “fuming” because their recycling wasn’t getting collected by bin crews over the Christmas period, scores of people have come forward to complaining about the changes.
Some people found the changes to collections “confusing” while others claim they didn’t know about them until they read about them on this website.
One resident said: “I didn’t have any leaflets about the changes and ordered extra bins three weeks ago which still haven’t arrived.”
Gloucester City Council did advertise that changes were due to take place , which was reported on this website before the new regime was enacted .
It did also provide leaflets to homes across the city informing them of the collection changes.
Meanwhile others say that they have plenty of plastic and paper/cardboard recycling, but hardly any glass.
From now on, all glass bottles go into one of the green boxes while all the paper and cardboard goes into the blue bag.
(Image: Alexander Burrell)
Jeremy-Anton Marquis said “We go through about five pieces of glass a week, everything else is plastic and metal. We need at least another green bin for the excess plastic and metal thats now building up.”
He provided this photo of the recycling building up outside his house.
One resident said “We had fair warning of the changes and it really isn’t that difficult to follow the instructions.”
But their post garnered this reply: “You might have, but not everyone did – my house for one didn’t get any notification of the changes until the team came and left our recycling one Monday.
“There was apparently a van in our area handing out extra bins and bags which we didn’t receive notice of and only found out a day after it happened by it popping up on Facebook randomly.
“We were already sorting ours out in to metal/glass, plastic and card before the changes came in and they still refused it that day.
“We also never got notified of the holiday collections this year either so had to keep putting out and hoping it was the right day.”
Previously glass and paper would go in one green box while plastics, cans, foil and aerosols into the other and cardboard into a blue bag.
Now, as of December 9, 2019, glass goes into one of the green boxes while plastic, can aerosols, foil and cartons goes in the other.
The blue bag now takes paper as well as card.
Items with excess food residue will not be collected.
Small electrical items –irons, hairdryers, kettles, etc – left on the lid of one of the green boxes can now be collected.
The changes are because mixed materials are difficult to recycle, for example, broken glass in with paper; black plastic is not recyclable; batteries have caused fires at recycling facilities in Gloucester.
And it seems that lazy people are making honest and considerate citizens lose out.
One person said: “My issue is when you put the bins out a d then some idiot dumps a can in the glass they then refuse to collect it… bit of common sense would help.
“Also had some new recycle bins delivered and they have already been stolen as they didn’t deliver enough to everyone.”
Thousands of blue bags have been handed out already, but there are no more available at the moment. You can read more on this here.
But some people came out in defence of the bin crews collecting the waste and recycling.
One person said: “I think the Refuse Collectors do a good job. They are following the policies made by their employers, just like anyone else would, so not their fault. Ignore the rules and they could be sacked I imagine, so if you have a problem, write to Gloucester City Council, Amey and Richard Graham.
“Shocking how easy it is for people to slag them off, yet they are someone’s son, daughter, Dad etc, and doing a job that can’t be the greatest of experiences.
“I imagine they are under increasing pressure to fit more and more houses into a shift.”
They ended their post with the phrase “#loveyourbinmen”.
A Gloucester City Council spokeswoman said that residents were sent an information leaflet by Royal Mail week at the start of the last week of November.
At the beginning of December a second leaflet was put into recycling boxes explaining that the new service would begin the next week, the spokeswoman said.
From December 9 a third leaflet was left in boxes which were not sorted explaining that from Monday December 16 recycling not correctly presented would not be taken.
The spokeswoman said the blue bag has more capacity than a green box and is better for cardboard and paper.
If it was filled with glass it would be too heavy for one loader to lift, they said.
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