Calls to end fly tipping at south Bristol beauty spot

 

 

By Sam Rkaina, Local Government Reporter

Residents are calling for something to be done about fly-tipping on an “urban oasis” in south Bristol.
The Northern Slopes includes a number of large areas of open space described as the south of the city’s answer to The Downs in Clifton.

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Bristol City Council made more than £2 million from selling recycled rubbish

 

By Marc Rath

THE amount of cash Bristol City Council made by selling the rubbish residents left out for recycling jumped to more than £2 million in the past year.

Some £2,097,343 was received by the authority from selling recycling materials such as tin cans and glass in 2010/11, compared with £1,378,468 in 2009/10, a rise of more than 50 per cent.

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Questions raised over Bristol’s “dreadful” new waste company

 

 

By Sam Rkaina, Local Government Reporter

QUESTIONS have been raised about the £96 million contract awarded to Bristol’s new waste company, after their performance was branded “dreadful and unacceptable”.
May Gurney are taking over from SITA as the company that will deal with the city’s rubbish collection and street cleaning for the next seven years.
But the company was forced to apologise to residents in neighbouring North Somerset after a poor performance last Christmas.

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New £96 million waste contract signed for Bristol

 

A £96-MILLION contract has been signed with Norwich-based firm, May Gurney, to manage Bristol’s waste collection, street cleansing and winter maintenance for the next seven years.

The new contract will save about  £2.5 million of council tax payers’ money each year, making it a more cost-effective service with potential to make further savings due to waste reduction.

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Another recycling box on the way for Bristol homes

 

 

By Ian Onions, Political Editor

A GREEN box will soon be delivered to every home in Bristol for recycling plastics.

Householders will be able to throw away plastic bottles, milk containers, yoghurt pots, fruit punnets and a range of other plastic items.

Until now, it has not been commercially viable to collect plastics because the items are high in volume but low in weight.
It meant householders had to take their plastics to collection points in the city.

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Tesco slammed for removing recycling bins

By Marc Rath

TESCO has come under attack for removing Bristol City Council recycling bins from its car parks.

The supermarket giant has forced the authority to remove its recycling banks from outside its big shops in Eastville, Brislington and Golden Hill.

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Replacing bins in Bristol has cost hundreds of thousands

Click here to see the story on the EP website

By Rachel Clare

MORE than 22,000 black wheelie bins have been lost or damaged across Bristol in the last four years, new figures show.

This includes bins that have been burnt out or vandalised, those damaged by the collection crew and those that have simply gone missing.

The data – obtained by the Evening Post under the Freedom of Information Act – also showed the council spent £142,186 on the black bins from January 2010 to January 2011.

A higher amount – £252,245 – was spent on wheelie bins from 2009 to 2010 and £201,701 was spent on them from 2008 to 2009, adding up to £596,132 over four years.

The figures also showed that requests for new bins totalled more than 12,500 in the last four years.

Thousands of pounds has gone on replacing damaged or lost bins in Bristol

Bristol City Council claims it aims to provide a new or replacement wheelie bin to about four per cent of Bristol’s households each year.

“The amount of money the council spends on bins each year includes providing new properties with bins and replacements for lost or damaged bins,” said council spokeswoman Catherine Frankpitt.

“Bins are replaced for various reasons, such as reasonable wear and tear – bins have an average lifetime of ten years, damage and bins being stolen or burnt out.”

But residents who ask for a new bin will no longer receive the same 240-litre size bin which has been lost or damaged.

The size of the new bin now depends on how many people are living at the property.

This measure was brought in by the council last year to try and help reduce the amount of household waste being sent to landfill.

Under the new scheme, households with one or two occupants are issued with a 140-litre bin; households with three to five residents get a 180-litre bin and only households with six or more occupants receive the 240-litre bin.

The smaller bins are being introduced through a phased programme over the next few years – only being replaced when residents request a new bin or a replacement for a lost one.

Ms Frankpitt said: “The council has an obligation to ensure that bins are in safe and good working order for both householders and collection crews to use.

“Therefore, if a wheeled bin is damaged, we need to replace it to make it fit for use.

“Similarly, if a bin is lost or stolen, we need to provide another bin to ensure safe storage of waste for the householder.

“We always encourage residents to look after their bins and store them off the highway between collections, and we are keen to keep the costs of replacement bins as low as possible.

“However, if we didn’t provide new or replacement bins when residents need them, the cost for cleaning up the streets, dealing with potential littering and broken bags is likely to be higher than the cost of the bins themselves.”

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