We have the recycling bags (and we now have the green glass bin and the blue food waste bin). We are getting ready for the last commercial bin collection this weekend. We have been getting the hang of it. As I say, it is all a bit new to us.
I do have concerns over how much of this actually gets processed as we are led to believe, and why it is all left to amateurs like us, but we are working on getting it right anyway.
These red and purple bags (paper/card, tin/plastic) are weekly. I got the sheet saying what goes where and how often. I got the calendar showing the A/B weeks, and the couple of cases a bank holiday matters (mostly they don't, like Easter is normal collection days).
The road I am on is the main road. We see the road with these bags every Friday. My immediate neighbour, and all the houses opposite, put these out on a Friday. Everyone I share a postcode with puts them out on a Friday. We noticed this. I had planned to double check the day for glass and food waste, these bags are obvious.
Getting it right
I put them out last Friday, and they were emptied, yay, we have the hang of the system!
Like everyone else, I put them out for today (last night). There were not collected. Everyone else's was. I was fuming.
I emailed the council, but the contact email address says "Please note that this mailbox is not monitored", so is not in fact a contact email address. What the hell?
OK I can message them, which turns out to be facebook, and that turns out to be a robot, so again, not a contact!
I have ranted over the contact email address not being a contract email address, and feel justified in doing so.
Anyway, having got cross over the non collection (and more so over the email address), I thought I would just double check. I don't know what led me to check, but I did. And guess what, our house is not on the same collection as the rest of the road! We are Wednesday (for these bags). Even though we are on the main road, a drive and front door on the main road, an address on the main road, the postcode is the same as neighbours on the main road, but no - we are in with the collection for the side road (the one where the residents feel adamant that we are not anything to do with them and their fake resident permit parking scheme). I really did not expect that at all.
So I was wrong!
I am not like Trump, I don't handle being wrong well, and it is bugging me.
Thankfully a slight rant on twitter and facebook was only there a moment and quickly deleted.
But it is still bugging me. I try hard not to be wrong, and this will annoy me at least the rest of the day.
Usually when I get cross like this, I check my facts very carefully before ranting, and I did not follow that rule this time. That was bad of me. It is a good rule to have.
I apologise to the council for the ranty email (sent via their press office email address) about the collections.
Get it right now
Many councils have APIs. I had to screen scrape the Monmouthshire council site, but looks like I have a plan now.
Another use for an e-paper sign.
I can add a few more bits to this I expect.
Update: Maybe I was too quick to apologise?
Monday, black bag and green glass, 6:47, still there, not collected.
Tuesday, blue food waste, still there, not collected.
Wednesday, red (card/paper) and purple (tins/bottles), not collected.
Result: Finally after complaining, they have collected all.
What is extra fun is my ranty (and wrong) email, via the press office, did get to someone, and they asked for more details, and I was able to explain that "all three missed collections" have now been sorted, and they seemed quite happy. Embarrassment cancelled out by council incompetence - unexpected!
Update: New week, this week's first missed collection was food waste, Tuesday.
Update: Now 5th missed collection, red/purple bags, Wednesday.
Update: After missing 7 of 8 collection days, we finally got a visit from a supervisor - he was happy with where we were putting rubbish, gave me his mobile number, co-ordinated with the teams and ensured collections. He then worked with us to co-ordinate a change of collection to a different schedule (matching the rest of our road) which was a lot easier for us (fewer bin days). Well done.
We've just moved from Ipswich to Somerset. Previously we had two decent size wheely bins, a black and a blue, the blue was recycling, the black rubbish, and they alternated so each was collected fortnightly.
ReplyDeleteNow we've got a tiny black bin that is never going to be big enough, and two small boxes with vague and confusing instructions as to what goes in each. And they are not the colours the website says they should be.
Genuinely thinking I'm going to be taking stuff to the tip every week unless we just pay for commercial collections. I wonder if I can buy a larger bin and the council will collect it.
I bet England goes the same as Wales and makes the commercial big not a solution (from 6th commercial waste also has to be separated).
Delete