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Enfield Council is consulting residents about proposals to save money by collecting waste less often.

The consultation, which runs until 6th January, relates to proposals which would only affect households with "wheelie bins" - households with shared bins or which do not use wheeled bins are not affected.

There are seven options, shown below with the estimated savings to the council and the estimated effect on the proportion of waste which is recycled.

wheelie bin options 1

Cost-saving measures are needed because of year-on-year cuts to the funding which central government provides to local authorities.  Since 2010 Enfield Council has made savings of £178 million in order to live with these cuts. It needs to make a further saving of £18 million in 2019/2020 in order to balance its budget.

There is a short version of the reasoning behind the proposed options in the consultations section of the council website.  A much more detailed description is also available - the paper drawn up for consideration by the cabinet member for environment.  An interesting fact quoted in the paper is that the 391 local authorities across the UK use no fewer than 58 different waste and recycling collection configurations.  The most commonly used of the Enfield options is option 7, used by 56 local authorities.

The online questionnaire gives respondents an opportunity to specify why a particular configuration would be problematical for their household.

In considering the options, the council states that the "primary driver" will be the amount of savings generated.  However, in the case of the option that provides the biggest savings - option 7 - the council says it would reinvest half a million pounds in improved street cleaning and flytip removal.

In the case of elderly or disabled people who would have difficulty moving a bin containing two weeks' worth of waste, the council points out that there are already arrangements in place for "assisted collections".

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Darren Edgar posted a reply
31 Oct 2018 17:13
I've always wondered why they don't just can garden waste collection over winter. Nov, Dec, Jan and Feb could easily have no collections - 33% saving overnight.

Like the idea of general waste only once a fortnight - will really focus the minds on recycling which we (Enfielders) need to do more of.

My support would be option 4, therefore, albeit option 5 seems to gain £1m extra savings just charging for garden waste collection!
Neil Littman posted a reply
01 Nov 2018 09:20
No mention in the survey of the several hundred properties in the borough like mine that have no room for wheelie bins and have special dispensation to use grey or blue bin bags which we put outside on the collection day.

However, they cannot be stored for any length of time so a two week collection period would be both a health hazard and impractical.

Did try to fill in the survey but realised my situation did not fit in with the questions so does that mean we end up with a two-tier system? Would be interested to know what the council think the answer is.

I think the fact that the council have got themselves into this situation is a bad sign in any case and suspect lack of central government funding has led to this.
Darren Edgar posted a reply
01 Nov 2018 09:40
Similar to people with disabilities, and those using shared bins (not wheelie bins), I would hope you get some kind of special dispensation for that as I agree it does not fit in fairly with the above.

Could do with a council tax increase to better fund local public services....
Anish Tailor posted a reply
01 Nov 2018 16:33
If this is the case, can I propose that the council updates all houses with small bin's and gives them a bigger version?
Darren Edgar posted a reply
01 Nov 2018 17:17
Anish Tailor wrote:

If this is the case, can I propose that the council updates all houses with small bin's and gives them a bigger version?


I guess it's tricky. I never more than half fill a wheelie bin, either recycling or general waste, in a week (2 adult household). With suitable recycling I could easily do a general bin a fortnight and focus on maximising how much i can get into the weekly recycling - and I suspect many could if putting their mind to it.
David Hughes posted a reply
01 Nov 2018 21:18
With reference to Anish Tailor's contribution today & David Eden's response I created an area for our 'slim' bins which precisely fits the space we have. Bigger bins would be a disaster for us.

Subject to further discussion with my wife I think we'll be ready to accept 'Suggestions 4 or 6' using the smaller bins though at a pinch we might be fairly happy with suggestion 7.

I think that it should come to this is rather sad; perhaps not where I live but overall I think that the change will lead to more careless treatment of waste resulting in more rubbish blowing about.
Basil Clarke posted a reply
02 Nov 2018 00:50
Neil Littman wrote:

No mention in the survey of the several hundred properties in the borough like mine that have no room for wheelie bins and have special dispensation to use grey or blue bin bags which we put outside on the collection day.


The survey says clearly that it's only for households with wheelie bins and not for people who have to use bags:

We are proposing changes to the collections for household rubbish and recycling from properties with a wheeled bin.

We are not proposing any change to flats with shared bins, or flats that don’t have a wheeled bin.

Basil Clarke posted a reply
02 Nov 2018 00:55
David Eden wrote:

I never more than half fill a wheelie bin, either recycling or general waste, in a week (2 adult household). With suitable recycling I could easily do a general bin a fortnight and focus on maximising how much i can get into the weekly recycling - and I suspect many could if putting their mind to it.


There are two of us and we only put a very small black bag in the general waste bin. Even though it's a small bin it would probably take us six weeks to fill it completely. The small blue bin that we have would probably fill up in three weeks. In contrst, in the summer we could easily fill two large green bins with garden waste per week.
Colin Younger posted a reply
02 Nov 2018 09:58
Reading the various exchanges on this it strikes me that virtually every household has a different pattern of waste generation, which makes it difficult to focus on one or other of the options.

As another example we fill a blue bin each week - lots of newsprint, magazines, packaging etc. Yet we hardly fill a third of the black bin. These are both the smaller size. In summer and autumn we often fill the large green bin, and may even use spare space in our neighbours' green bin.

Storing larger black or blue bins would be a problem, but if the changed collection meant that we needed larger bins who would pay?

I can't see examination in the consultation of the effects of cutting out green waste collection in the winter period. If green waste collection is cut what would be essential is for food to be collected weekly. On a fortnightly collection it's not too bad if food waste is mixed in with gardn waste in the green bin - but the smell if food was separated and collected fortnightly would be intolerable.

I suspect that the take up for a £65 green bin collection woud be too small to make it economical - haven't we been here before?
Karl Brown posted a reply
06 Nov 2018 11:03
A technical seminar and associated presentation on waste, supporting the Draft London Plan, at City Hall tomorrow (7th November) will show in its 2021 figures that Enfield has waste levels per household only “beaten” by Bromley and Croydon across all London boroughs. Makes you think that perhaps the most sensible approach to reduce costs is for us all to throw less stuff away.