Will Southwark ever collect my garden/food waste bin again?

[a_m]

It's been four weeks now - I've reported every week's missed collection - and now have a cloud of fruit flies greeting me every time I open the brown bin as four weeks of food and garden waste sit in there rotting.

Completely appreciate these are trying times and there are more important things in the world, but how can the Council justify charging us an additional ?40 a year for this service on top of our council tax and then fail to provide it for so long?

I've submitted a complaint - the reply to which was that Covid and "adverse weather" in January had caused service problems but all missed bins have now been collected (clearly not true), I've emailed the Environment team several times with no answer, and copied in our Councillor.

Is anyone else's brown bin also not being collected?

[Penguin68]

Where?

[a_m]

Oglander

[Zak]

Wwe're in the saame road and our brown bin has been emptied each week.

Could it be that you've mixed up garden waste with food waste and this is causing a problem. Although it all ends up in the same place, when Southwark started charging they specified that food waste had to be left in a seperate kitchen caddy and that the it could no longer be thrown in with the garden waste.

Just a thought...........

[Peckhampam]

Good detective work Zak. Indeed the ?40 is only garden waste

[a_m]

Thank you for flagging that Zak - that?s super helpful but a shame the Council couldn?t have let me know directly - I thought the refuse collectors left little labels/tags on your bin if you?d put the wrong things in it. Also I have to say I?m quite baffled at this separation between garden and food waste as up till now they?ve been collecting mine combined every week since the garden waste scheme began with no issues and none of my immediate neighbours (who also subscribe for garden waste collection) seem to have separate food waste bins either, so not sure what?s going on - but I appreciate your post nonetheless!

[geh]

as an aside I have just given up my garden waste subscription and pre-purchased some brown sacks, mainly because each week the collectors fill my brown bin with the entire streets green food sacks prior to putting them on the lorry, leaving me a delightfully fragrant distillation of everyones food waste to enjoy!

[singalto]

The men who empty the brown bins empty my neighbours? food caddy into my garden waste bin!

[Rockets]

I saw the bin team on our street doing exactly the same thing this week - at each house they emptied the caddy contents into the big brown bin before taking the big brown bin to the bin lorry.

[Penguin68]

Although it is true that the Veolia refuse collectors add kitchen to garden waste both in the lorry and (sometimes) in Garden waste bins; in doing so they are in control of what combined waste is being collected. Faced with a mixture which they haven't 'created' they cannot be certain the 'right' waste is there. [Of course, before garden waste was charged for, they weren't being contractually obliged to care!].

The setting-up of separated waste collection was a Southwark revenue creation scheme - not a Veolia initiative. Although in some areas they do treat kitchen and garden organic waste differently - garden waste being composted for fertiliser and kitchen waste being fed into anaerobic digesters to produce saleable methane these facilities are nor available for their London operation yet. So all Southwark organic waste collected is composted. [NB 'green' garden waste can also be readily anaerobically digested - but not woody waste, I believe, which is more common in towns, where the bulk of 'green' waste is just lawn clippings).

[jamesmcash]

Hi all,

There have been a few missed collections recently. I'm very sorry about that.

If you do not have any success reporting a missed collection please feel free to email me and I will chase it up.

Best wishes

James

[a_m]

Thanks James, I appreciate your offer of help.

It took four missed collection reports but my brown bin has now been collected! I also had a call from the Environment team and asked about the question of food waste. Apparently you can put food waste loose into your garden bin, but shouldn?t use compostable bags.

Thanks again.

[intexasatthe moment]

. "Apparently you can put food waste loose into your garden bin, but shouldn?t use compostable bags."

Interesting ,I would much prefer this to using the fiddly and now cracked food caddy .

[ed26]

The refuse collectors empty the food caddies from our flats into our brown bin (including compostable bags which split open) and then either miss the brown bin collection, or leave it because there isn't a lot in there. First world problems, I know, but it does become very tiresome.

[legalalien]

For those interested in what happens to stuff in the brown bins, here?s a link to an interesting summary prepared for next week?s environment scrutiny committee

https://moderngov.southwark.gov.uk/documents/s102166/Council%20policy%20on%20food%20waste%20collections.pdf

[Nigello]

Seems like people in council accommodation don't like/haven't been fully told about/CBA to recycle their food waste. If only 14 percent are doing it, making up for 2% of compostable food waste total, then I agree it makes little sense for the council to extend it, unless they impose fines.