It emerged in the press on Monday that Denbighshire county council is now charging £45 for a replacement black, blue or green bin! If one is cracked, if a wheel comes off or a lid loosens and cannot be shut then the householder now has to pay for the swap. That's rather harsh, given that the bins have been with us for 15 years or so. And, once a fortnight, they get a punishing bashing when they are slapped into the refuse collection vehicle.
This change of policy took place in early November, yet it's taken a while to percolate. I cannot see any press release issued for this by Denbighshire.
Damaged: the black bin lid, left, is broken. The replacement cost will now be £45
This will no doubt be dubbed as 'outrageous'. You'd think that we would have outrage fatigue by now. But, hang on. Although the council hasn't said so, slapping a £45 charge on a bin would surely result in our taking the greatest care of them and looking after them. This autumn, we all know that energy prices have gone sky high. Helped by a milder than usual autumn, I haven't put my heating on till November 22nd, over 50 days and possibly over 60 days later than usual. It's sometimes not been easy and it certainly hasn't always been comfortable but it has saved ⅛ of the energy we would traditionally use.
The same principle might therefore apply to bins: charge for replacements and fewer people will need to ask for that replacement. So, the £45 is perhaps not such a bad thing, after all. Even if the council has kinda hidden it from us and even if the reasoning isn't so we look after the bins, it's to save £45-70,000 in replacements and requests for additional working-from-home capacity.
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Denbighshire