With the four weekly bin collection pilot in Conwy starting this month, Clwyd West AM Darren Millar has reiterated his concerns about reducing the frequency of bin collections.
Earlier this year, despite strong opposition from residents, Conwy County Borough Council voted to scrap fortnightly bin collections in favour of three-weekly collections and decided to run a pilot of four-weekly pick-ups in one area of the county.
This pilot is set to start this month and leaflets explaining how it will work have been distributed in areas affected, including Towyn and Kinmel Bay. Residual waste - which goes to landfill - will be collected every four weeks, with food waste and recycling collections remaining weekly.
The Council state that collecting refuse less often encourages people to recycle more, but Darren, who has been against the proposals from the start and led a petition calling for the proposals to be ditched, believes that the Council should be considering alternative ways to promote recycling instead.
He said:
“Simply cutting fortnightly bin collections and making them every four weeks does not solve anything. The four weekly refuse collections fail to address clinical or incontinence waste and I've received a number of complaints from constituents who tell me that the provisions for pet waste are inadequate. The Council advise that animal waste should be bagged up before placing it into your wheelie bin, but this will only minimise unpleasant smells, not get rid of them, and it could lead to adverse public health consequences. Four weeks is a long time for this type of waste to be left, particularly in warmer weather. Worse still, if people miss a bin collection for some reason then waste could be sat in bins for up to 8 weeks; it simply isn't good enough.
“My other concern is that some people will just let rubbish build up and what we will see is an increase in rodent and seagull populations, flytipping, odours and litter, the last thing an area which relies on tourism needs. As I said at the time, it is particularly concerning that this pilot is commencing over the summer months when our visitor economy may be affected by the changes, and in particular that the Towyn and Kinmel Bay area is to be the pilot for four weekly collections, given the importance of tourism in the locality.
“Reducing bin collections harms the environment fuelling fly-tipping and rips off local residents by cutting the services they pay for in council tax. “
The monthly collections will be trialled throughout Conwy county at properties that have their collections made on Mondays – approximately 10,300 households.