£2 Reduction Ends Today

Today is the last day to get your green bin at £22 rather than the usual £24 per annum. The deadline was extended by two weeks from the end of January.

Reminder stickers began arriving on existing bin tops w/b February 2nd

A chance conversation with one of the nice people who staff Denbighshire's telephones revealed that, contrary to what I certainly expected, things had been quiet during the last week of the £2 discount. Had everyone who wants one already applied?  Were they doing so online? Or weren't they going to bother?

Garden waste dumped in street bin

 

This has certainly been in the news a fair amount over the last few months. It began in late September 2014 with anger. There were threats of fly tipping, warnings of hiding garden waste in black bins, promises of burning green waste and even stuffing it down the drains. It ended with acceptance as, at the end of January 8,300 and by the first week in February 9,051 households had signed up the £22 charge scheme (up from 5,858 on January 23rd and 4,000 from early January). This out of a total number of households of 35,000. The council was expecting 11,000 by today's discount deadline (after which the price increases to £24). But, by Thursday, the expected rush had not yet materialised, not by phone at any rate. On February 9th, a rubbish manager said,

"We expect the volume of payments to increase in the days before the discount ends and I would strongly recommend using the online payment system to minimise any waiting time"

Contrary to people's perception, the charge is actually good value for money. It represents a cost of just less than £1 per collection. Before Denbighshire introduced this service, the cost of a green sack had escalated to £1.50 and this gave you about half a green bin's worth of capacity. OK, so the service has been free for about seven years but had we all continued to pay, just with inflation, this would probably be £1.75 per sack. If you use just one per week for six months at £1.75, that comes out at £45.50 or double today's discounted charge.

Even with the scheme, there will be two bin lorries fewer and six redundancies. Denbighshire. currently no. 1 in Wales for recycling, will likely slip down the table as a result of the green bins.

Update March 2015: 12,000 signed up by the end of the financial year