Rubbish collection staff ‘facing chaos due to cuts’ - Camden Town Hall denies fewer bin lorries has affected refuse services
Published: 13 May, 2010
by JOSIE HINTON
WASTE collections are being cut on an ad-hoc basis as Camden’s bin collectors struggle to keep up with increased workloads, insiders have told the New Journal.
While all households in the borough are scheduled to receive twice weekly collections, some residents have seen this fall to just one in recent weeks.
It follows the removal of three bin lorries from the Camden’s roads by the Town Hall as part of a wider reorganisation of the service.
Officials have denied services are being cut, insisting the changes – which include the extension of recycling collections to include food waste – will lead to a greener and more efficient service.
But the borough’s bin-men say they are struggling to cope with a sharp increase in work, forcing them to leave some houses without a visit on their rounds.
One worker, who asked not to be named, said: “Our workload has gone up by an extra couple of hours a day. The attitude from above is, ‘if you don’t like it, you know what you can do’.”
He added: “It’s been chaos – at first we weren’t given any areas and we didn’t have set routes. We’ve been told that Camden are making cutbacks to make moves towards more recycling. But we’re collecting large amounts of recycling as it is, because a lot of people don’t separate their rubbish.”
The council has rejected claims that refuse staff are failing to complete rounds.
Councillor Chris Knight, who was the executive member for recycling until Thursday’s change of power in the local elections, said: “We are running two waste collections per week and there are no plans for that to change.”
But yesterday morning (Wednesday) some residents in Regent’s Park Road had still not had their rubbish collected by lunchtime.
A Camden Council spokeswoman said: “The council is making changes to residents’ rubbish collections in order to make the service more efficient and to reduce the number of collection vehicles on the road. This will help to cut carbon emissions and make Camden a greener place to live.
This means that some residents have had their collection day changed. Those residents are already being informed of this change.”
She added that the three lorries removed from the roads will be replaced by nine smaller recycling vans.
A spokesman from Veolia Environmental Services, which runs the collections on behalf of the Town Hall, said: “We collect residual waste in Regent’s Park Road twice weekly on Wednesday and Saturday and recyclates once a week on a Friday. Our collections are up to date and we have confirmation from a local resident that today’s collection took place as planned.”