Bin Collection in Stroud Green

Mack

Anyone else find it offensive that the council tell us to leave our rubbish and recycling bins where the bin men choose to leave them? -ie- on our front doorsteps? I recently found a notice on my bin issuing me with these very instructions.

I can think of quite a few reasons why the bin men should exert themselves by walking a few more paces and replacing bins where we choose to put them- in a place most convenient to the resident, not to the council worker.

First, bins lying on front paths are a sure sign there's nobody at home and an invitation to burglars. The council seem unaware that this behaviour makes us vulnerable.

Then, elderly people should not have to lug these bins about after the bin men who can't be bothered to replace them properly.

Also, whose front gardens actually are they? Ours- and we should be able to say where the bins stand on our property, not be told by the council.

Next, we are paying the council extortionate council taxes for this service and they should be respectful towards the tax payers who provide their wages. Remember, they are not doing us a favour. We employ them- the council have no money except money we give them.

Finally, is the council still serving the people or we the people now serving the council?

Why can't council employees be trained to the kind of reasonable standard those in the private sector must maintain if they want to stay in business?

unaesthetic

<i>I can think of quite a few reasons why the bin men should exert themselves by walking a few more paces and replacing bins where we choose to put them</i>

#1 should surely be: <strong>it's their fucking job</strong>

</tory>

graeme

what response did you get from the council on this? Would be interesting to know.

tosscat

I don't really understand this thread. Where I used to live you always moved the bin round the front of the house by the gate on bin day. It's just the way it was. I'm sure if the bin people had a couple more minutes per house then they would happily hunt round to find the bins hidden under your Cath Kidston covers (lol), mind you would the council tax go up (cue start of another new moany thread). @ Mack - how do you 'exert' yourself for a living. You should swap with the one of them for a day then you could reap the benefit of their salary.

graeme

I know what s/he's saying, they find the bins ok as they request they be left 'within 4 feet of the front gate', but have a habit of leaving the green boxes in the middle of the path and the bins similarly strewn in an obvious "I got it from over there, but I'm just dumping it here, right." fashion. It does make the place look unoccupied, I agree, but it's more the 'can't be arsedness' of it that wrankles when they make residents jump through (albeit not difficult) hoops.

ShaunG

I think I'm similarly lost. Is the complaint that the binmen leave the bins and green boxes in the wrong place, on the pavement or whatever? Or that there's been some requirement that householders have to leave them out in the pavement themselves or they won't get emptied? The former happens every now and then but doesn't bother me much, but I don't recognise the latter. I try to leave the bin near the front garden gate, but I've never been asked to put it outside the front garden.

becky

Could be worse. I was wandering through Belgravia the other night and saw signs saying something like this:
"Bins are collected at 10:30am on Monday. You must not put your bins out on the street more than 30 minutes before collection time or you will be fined £200."
At first I looked at it and thought they expected you to stay at home and not go to work every Monday morning until it was bin time. Then I realised all these households must have 24/7 hired help. Guess our area hasn't quite gentrified enough to do this... yet...

andy

Looks like the Lib Dems are picking up the bin/street cleaning issue <http://www.richardwilson.me.uk/2009/07/19/council-cuts-funding-for-stroud-green-road-clear-up/>; Also, I'm delighted to see Lynne F going for a new look in this photo. Rather than the traditional 'sad faced pointing' we've come to know and love, she's gone for open-palmed 'has-it-come-to-this' power-gesturing.  This new look has got an excellent eighties power ballad feel to it, but she needs to get rid of her backing singers.

underscore_cue

If she wants some more respect, she needs to take on the putin look: 

David

There's def a St. Etienne photo shoot feel about that Lynne shot.

graeme

[Don't want to get arrested. Again.]

Hopefully Lynn's campaign is successful!!

andy

@optimo - you're possibly crossing a line there. I was thinking more like this: 

poxy

Oooh, bribery opportunity!

How much to send the link of this thread to LF?

Alternatively...

How much to NOT send the link of this thread to LF?

andy

her people are everywhere. optimo75 has probably already been arrested.

leiba1

As a local CVW I do occassionally get involved in the issues of bin collection and street sweeping etc. Bins should not be put out on the pavement/road. (But tell that to the binmen) They're supposed to be put where it's easy for them to be collected and then replaced back at the same site. (suppossed?) But they don't.
In my road, Woodstock, (the road the photo of L.F. is taken in) we have multi-dwelling properties and a lot of transient tennants and on top of that very small front yards. The binmen here seem to have no thought of the consequences of where they leave the bins. I know of one case a few doors down where they left the bin, one of those big ones to accomodate all four flats in the house, at the top of the stairs of the basement flat in which lived a disabled lady. She was stuck there until she could find someone to come and move the bin for her. In all fairness to the binmen the actual bin area, which incidently was built by the council for the four council flats in the house, is down some steep steps with a very narrow access and awkward to negotiate. But something has to be worked out there, it's almost impossible to pull a full bin out of the sunken dustbin well. Most of the houses here were council property with purpose built bin areas which are now defunct because of the size on the new wheelie bins. For this reason we often find bins out on the pavement left out by residents and binmen alike. H&S has decreed that the poor binmen mustn't excert themselves by, dare I say it, too much effort. But we should be able to come to a reasonable compromise.
Mack, have a word with your local crew, they'll either quote H&S guidelines at you and point to that stupid little notice or they may even listen to you and put the bin back where you want it.
By the way, it wasn't the binmen themselves who stuck the notice on the bins, although they may have had some input on it, it was one of those 'jobsworths' that was following the crew around.

poxy

CVW?

injoke

my money's on community volunteer worker

leiba1

Community Volunteer Warden.

lynnefeatherstone

Yep - those backing singers will definitely have to go!

markpack

Given the <a href="http://gizmodo.com/5340188/the-story-of-the-hilarious-photo-crasher-squirrel">squirrel in photo</a> joke going round t'internet, it seems only right to present this:

<img src="http://www.markpack.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/1250982246410261177681061.jpg">

(Edited to fix image link)