First they came for the bulky waste collections and slapped a £25 charge on them because it was being “abused by small businesses”. Then they came for any of our extra waste and slyly introduced “waste chargeable” sacks under the cover of a Citizens’ Jury on Waste process. Now they’ve come for the wheelie bins …
Yes it’s time to get another big thanks from our generous Labour council for all our efforts at producing the best recycling rate in the UK. Our reward? Not only an above inflation council tax rise but yet another newly minted waste charge on top. This time it’s a charge of £20 for a replacement wheelie bin should you be unlucky enough to lose your current one.
This, we’re encouraged to believe by Labour rubbish boss Judith price, is because the council’s spending £400,000 a year on replacement wheelie bins at present. According to our calculator that means between us we’re allegedly losing 20,000 wheelie bins a year then.
But of course we’re not losing them are we? Oh no. Judith’s super smart rubbish officers have in fact allegedly discovered a roaring trade in wheelie bins at local car boot sales would you believe?
Probably not. The idea that we’re all up the Whitchurch car boot – or at least we were before the council shut it down to better focus their efforts on subsidising cappucinos and introducing free wi-fi on Harbourside – lucratively shifting wheelie bins by the tens of thousands is one of the most ridiculous claims yet to have emerged from the Council House.
Why don’t they just admit they’re really just fleecing us every which way they can to fund Labour councillors’ pet equalities and cultural projects?
I’ve had a wheelie bin stolen from outside my door before now and so have some of my neighbours. In such circumstances, the council’s £20 replacement charge just adds insult to injury.
To the muppet who thought this one up: well done thou good and trusty public servant!
When I moved house in summer I found we had the smallest size wheelie bin. Phone call to the Council to order a full size one led to me being informed that only residential properties of 6 or more people where entitled to this.
I informed the woman that my bin only held 2 bin bags and that each week i was having to drive to the local skip. She told me to recycle more. Being that both my black box and food bin are always full i asked what else i could possibly recycle? Plastics apparently. This, however, would meam driving to the local supermarket recycling facilites. Brilliant! To be more enviromentally friendly I need to drive around Bristol. Fucking genius that.
£20 is not a bad deal. best price I’ve heard so far is Blakenal at “only” £18.50. Hartlepool is a cracker though – the bin is free but the delivery charge is £60. You can’t collect due to “health and safety considerations”! Maybe we should publish a League Table?