Hard to understand authority’s decision on Veolia

Published: 7 July, 2011

• THE French-British journalist Agnes Poirier has criticised the refuse collection of Camden by comparing it with the environmentally-friendly refuse collection in Paris. 

She wrote: “…my street in Camden now looks like Bogotá. Residents keep, on a permanent basis, their blue, green and white bags for recycling hanging from their doors or railings” (Evening Standard, June 17).

I wholeheartedly endorse Agnes’s criticism and agree with her observation. 

However, as I learnt from my own and my neighbours’ experience, it is not normally the residents who hang their recycling bags on the railings but rather the refuse workers of Veolia who leave behind them a courtyard which looks as if it was just ransacked by some vandals who left recycling bags/bins and their top lids strewn all over residential yards and the public pavement.

Veolia Environmental Services, whose initial contract was extended by Camden without going for an official tender (Town hall land sales allowed £140m contract to fall into lap of waste giant, New Journal April 16 2009), states on its website: “Our responsibility to help secure a positive future for the environment is a challenge we are proud to meet”. 

Yet the Camden experience, past and present, demonstrates that the company is far from meeting its commitment to the environment and to the residents of Camden. 

In a letter you published (September 16 2010) the environment chief Councillor Sue Vincent acknowledged “teething problems” of “the new recycling service” noting that “the issues your readers have raised, particularly about mixing up of recyclable material on collection, is something we take very seriously”. 

More than 10 months on those “teething problems” continue in various forms, leaving residents at the “mercy” of Veolia’s services. Moreover, in order to balance the council budget, waste procurement in Camden will now be limited to a once-a-week collection.

It is quite hard to understand the recent decision of the North London Waste Authority, which includes Camden and six other boroughs, to shortlist Veolia for a multi-billion waste management contract which is “likely to run for 25 to 35 years from 2014”, and will possibly be granted at the end of 2011.

It is not too late the authority to reconsider Veolia’s eligibility for tendering for the contract.

RUTH TENNE
Goldhurst Terrace, NW6

Eurobin, please

• NOW bins are only collected once a week can the council please provide its residents with large Eurobins? 

It has not been long since our bin collections have been reduced and already I have seen rats outside on the street and in the front gardens along where I live. And the smell…

NAME AND ADDRESS SUPPLIED, NW5