Whilst Merton Council are making unnecessary cuts to adult education and care for vulnerable adults, they are ‘piloting’ (read imposing) a wheelie bin service on residents in Mitcham.

Not only is this policy expensive, it goes against the fundamental necessity for waste to be minimised. Reducing waste is entirely possible because 93% of what we buy can be recycled and the vast majority of what we purchase can be re-used time and again. A waste minimisation strategy of reduce, re-use and recycle turns rubbish into a resource, not an ever growing, increasingly expensive waste empire as at Merton Council.

There is no case for wheelie bins. Merton’s plague of two over-large containers per household would provide a capacity of 420 Litres. These enormities would fit the rubbish of a large family for a fortnight!  And because of their size, users have little motivation to recycle as the simplicity of filling the giant trash can is just too easy. In addition, as many residents don’t have storage space, these bins will often be stuck on the public realm or in once beautiful front gardens.

The annual cost for such an imposition is more than £1.75 million, which is why Labour is cutting other services to pay for them. Council documents prove that they are cutting day care for disabled & vulnerable people, sacking 7 street cleaners, firing 9 more staff from Merton’s parks, removing all dog waste bins from the borough, stopping delivery of food waste liners and reducing road repairs. These cuts add up to £1.8 million per annum.

The bizarre tale that streets will be cleaner with wheelie bins is clearly designed to move the argument into fantasy land so as not to provide a debate. Streets are dirty in Merton because there are less street cleaners under Labour, less street bins and limited resident communications about not dropping litter. Wheelie bins are expensive to introduce, expensive to collect, often increase waste tonnage and can reduce recycling rates and lastly, extremely ugly turning a beautiful street scene into a horrible one.

Conservative Councillor David Dean

via email