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Recycling chaos in Skem
By Steve Hanlon | January 7, 2007
Last year, the Tory council changed the recycling collection in Skelmersdale which was supposed to make things better - easier to recycle and a higher percentage of waste recycled.
Well, it isn’t working in Moorside - and by all accounts it isn’t working across Skelmersdale.
Things have been made much worse by the chaotic collections since the start of December. I complained last month about the collections and was fobbed off with an email stating that there were “teething problems” in the area.
The fact is - before Christmas, the streets and paths were starting to look in a state because cardboard wasn’t being collected from everywhere and the autumn leaves were left to rot. Now it’s worse because of patchy and incomplete collections.
I’ve had complaints of:
- Collections not happening - leaving recycling out on the streets
- Collection teams actually telling residents that they had been when they hadn’t
- Teams not taking all the waste from outside a house, despite it being presented in the correct way.
The result is that the estates have rapidly ended up with cardboard, paper and other waste blowing around or rotting outside houses.
When there were “teething problems” in the past, in Burscough for example, a lot of the problems were because the Council didn’t explain fully what was happening. Consequently there was more waste and the wrong waste presented to the Council. In Skem the “teething problems” are because the Council can’t or won’t do the job properly.
We’ve now reached the point where people are asking for the old skips back and the old recycling service to be re-introduced. No wonder, because some people have over a month’s recycling collected in the house.
The situation is an absolute disgrace. People are rightly demanding a public meeting and Pat and I will try to get the Tory Cllr Baldock and the Council officers responsible to attend.
Topics: Moorside, West Lancs |