Rage over growing mountain of uncollected rubbish at Eastleigh flats (From Daily Echo)

Bin men these days are are bunch of jobworths ! they once refused to empty my wheelie bin because it was on the end of my driveway and not the pavement ,the width of the bin being the extra they had to walk. every week we have to block the pavement's with bin's making pedestrian access difficult and disabled access impossible.

sack them i say !!

typical actions of a Lib Dum council. Serves them right for being such idiots (the council, not the suffering residents).

Totally agree, lazy, jobsworths. why can't they pick up the bin bags like they used to, they've done it for years. They will use any excuse not to empty the bins. Sack them and give their jobs to the Polish, at least when they work they work hard. Not like the lazy people we hace collecting our rubbish at the moment.

The rubbish will have to be removed, for Public Health reasons.

Start fly tipping! The Council will soon buck up thier ideas! I know I will be tempted to fly tip if this 'Pay as you go' thing is introduced!

There are two sides to this problem, the first being one which affects all residents, and that is the stupid rules set by the Council stipulating that side waste will not be tolerated, or collected by the refuse collectors. Absurd and not fair considering the amount of Council tax we have to pay, but 'rules are rules' and we have to live with that. The second part to this problem is someone in this development decided the rules did not apply to them and put out two sacks of side waste. We've been told in several missives from the Council that this waste will not be collected so do not put it out - take it to the tip if none of it is recyclable. Obviously when the bins were not emptied in the first instance because of the side waste the culprit(s) didn't see fit to remove the sacks and others just added to it. Sure it's stupid that sacks are not collected but it's the ignorance of some of the residents who think they can ignore rules and do as they please that has caused this unsightly mess. These same residents will be expecting the Council to get rid of the rats next!!

the real mr x wrote:
Bin men these days are are bunch of jobworths ! they once refused to empty my wheelie bin because it was on the end of my driveway and not the pavement ,the width of the bin being the extra they had to walk. every week we have to block the pavement's with bin's making pedestrian access difficult and disabled access impossible.

sack them i say !!

there is a reason why they did not pick up your rubbish,read the rules,
binmen are not allowed to enter any ones garden, try putting the wheels on the very edge of the pathways so the rest of the bin is on your drive way.

Wordsfailme wrote:
There are two sides to this problem, the first being one which affects all residents, and that is the stupid rules set by the Council stipulating that side waste will not be tolerated, or collected by the refuse collectors. Absurd and not fair considering the amount of Council tax we have to pay, but 'rules are rules' and we have to live with that. The second part to this problem is someone in this development decided the rules did not apply to them and put out two sacks of side waste. We've been told in several missives from the Council that this waste will not be collected so do not put it out - take it to the tip if none of it is recyclable. Obviously when the bins were not emptied in the first instance because of the side waste the culprit(s) didn't see fit to remove the sacks and others just added to it. Sure it's stupid that sacks are not collected but it's the ignorance of some of the residents who think they can ignore rules and do as they please that has caused this unsightly mess. These same residents will be expecting the Council to get rid of the rats next!!

Sometimes side waste in flats are unavoidable.
I know of blocks of flats that only have 1 large communal bin on wheels, which gets filled within 3 days. The council will not supply another so the waste gets piled high and side waste is accumulated.
If the council do not help solve the problem which they themseleves create, why should the residents?

In Cyprus they will collect anything i put out 3 times a week in Summer and twice a week in the rest of the year. It costs me a whopping €160 a year which i am sure is a lot less than what i used to pay in the UK. Another sign of the sh*t our country has got into, no wonder there are growing numbers leaving the UK these days.

Yes, wordsfailme, but there are more than two ways to look at this situation. Many youngsters have no idea how to separate and put into the right bin, not everyone has a car, not everyone can take time off from work to go to the dump - if we happen to go there there are tall bins galore, this for household, this for wood, another for garden waste AND the householder has one black bin liner with all these in one sack. May I say that every week in Romsey alongside the waste disposal bottle banks are huge piles of plastic bags full of household waste - They, the public, have to have somewhere to put their bags - I am sure rats crowd around this rubbish every night when the folk are safely tucked up in bed. Test Valley, think carefully. If it worked before all this once a fortnight, if it worked before why change it?

goard

southy wrote:

the real mr x wrote:
Bin men these days are are bunch of jobworths ! they once refused to empty my wheelie bin because it was on the end of my driveway and not the pavement ,the width of the bin being the extra they had to walk. every week we have to block the pavement's with bin's making pedestrian access difficult and disabled access impossible.

sack them i say !!

there is a reason why they did not pick up your rubbish,read the rules,
binmen are not allowed to enter any ones garden, try putting the wheels on the very edge of the pathways so the rest of the bin is on your drive way.

They did not have to enter my property at all. the bin were on the very edge of my driveway with the handles facing outwards yet they refused to empty the bins because they were not on the pavement. totally bloodymindedness from a bunch of work shy jobworths .

southy - why aren't they "allowed" to enter the property? That is simply one of the council's self-imposed rules.

This is a new block of flats this often happens when new residents move in.
It shows that something is not working. The council has the power to impose conditions on the developer which relates to a refuse management plan. These can be site specific but what this shows is the refuse collection area designed for this block is not suited. The developer will make each resident pay around £80 per month in management fees this should cover the general upkeep of the bin area if refuse gets out of control like this which happen on mass move in.
I would not blame the bin men they work very hard and often get treated poorly by residents. More and more flats means more work for them.

10 Minute Man, Bitterne, go back a number of years,there was a problem with thieving,and rubbish men was getting the blame. even lo it was not them,there was also the added problem of bin men picking up stuff thinking it was rubbish, but councils over the country change the rules because of this,a bin man is not allowed to even put a toe or finger across the garden line.
the real mr x, bitterne try putting the wheels off the bin on the pavement,thats what i do and dont have any problem.

I remember when they would go into your garden, carry out any rubbish either in an old fashioned dustbin or bin bags and throw it onto the truck, then return your bin and lock the gate behind them. Simpler days when the Goody Goody Health & Safety people were not around! Fun Police Says it all!

All I can ssay you seem to be unlucky.


I live in Botley and come under Eastleigh Council. We have no trouble with tour bin men iin fact I would say they are doining a excellant job The are always very pleasant and as I am disabled they collect and return my bin close to wheere it is kept. Perhaps we are lucky!tree-fish

If more people stood up to the heavy handed Lib Dums rather than just sit back and letting them steam roller through every planning proposal and quirky by laws that they want to get passed Eastleigh would be a better community to live in. That means actually getting off your *** and voicing your opinions at council meetings!!!

Bigrich1980 wrote:
In Cyprus they will collect anything i put out 3 times a week in Summer and twice a week in the rest of the year. It costs me a whopping €160 a year which i am sure is a lot less than what i used to pay in the UK. Another sign of the sh*t our country has got into, no wonder there are growing numbers leaving the UK these days.

Rigrich. Have you got any room for lodgers?
I would love to get out of this country and in particular Beastleigh with its mamby pamby rules and lefty regulations.

merckxy wrote:

Bigrich1980 wrote: In Cyprus they will collect anything i put out 3 times a week in Summer and twice a week in the rest of the year. It costs me a whopping €160 a year which i am sure is a lot less than what i used to pay in the UK. Another sign of the sh*t our country has got into, no wonder there are growing numbers leaving the UK these days.

Rigrich. Have you got any room for lodgers? I would love to get out of this country and in particular Beastleigh with its mamby pamby rules and lefty regulations.

Try Turkey.
Bins emptied every day, and my council tax is 60-00 a year.
And nearly all year sun as well.

goard wrote:
Yes, wordsfailme, but there are more than two ways to look at this situation. Many youngsters have no idea how to separate and put into the right bin, not everyone has a car, not everyone can take time off from work to go to the dump - if we happen to go there there are tall bins galore, this for household, this for wood, another for garden waste AND the householder has one black bin liner with all these in one sack. May I say that every week in Romsey alongside the waste disposal bottle banks are huge piles of plastic bags full of household waste - They, the public, have to have somewhere to put their bags - I am sure rats crowd around this rubbish every night when the folk are safely tucked up in bed. Test Valley, think carefully. If it worked before all this once a fortnight, if it worked before why change it? goard

Ignorance is no excuse. The council have just issued the handbooks stating what can recycled and what can't.
Why on earth would an average householder have one black bag with wood, garden waste AND household waste? (particularly no gardsen waste for a block of flats!)
You do not need to take time off work simply to go to the dump. It takes a matter of minutes at the weekend, or on whatever day you have as a rest day.
They, the public, do have somewhere to put there bags. It's called a wheelie bin! If one bin is not sufficient, all you do is apply to the council, fill in a simple justification form and, Hey Presto! you get an additional bin that will house what would otherwise be sidewaste!
I must also point out that IF the recyclable items are separated out properly, there is no moratorium on sidewaste for recyclable material provided it is put in the clear sacks.

This is obviously absurd. The waste collection "service" has been complicated out of all recognition because our bloated public sector employs ever more people - sorry "officers" on expensive index linked wages whose job is to continually identify Health and safety "isshooos" so if they don't keep finding things to object to, they aren't justifying their existence. The funny thing is, they are only protecting us from another equivalent set of pointless deskbound jobsworths whose job it is to prosecute these same "isshoos". I also have a milkman and a postman who come onto my property every day, so am I still at risk? yes? no? no change? It's no good me speaking to the H&S person as they will simply say "I cannot comment on that". What a waste of my tax. Can the Echo do us all a favour - could the journo ring the council offices and speak to the faceless person who enforces this nonsense, then get the name of the faceless person who forces them to enforce it, and so on, until we finally get to the boneheaded official somewhere who has the power to change it....... AND NAME THEM!!!

Not allowed to lift bags?? YOUR A BINMAN!!! TOUGH

If you didn't want to spend your working life doing manual labour you should have tried harder at School.

Fire the lot of them (and bar them from benefits) and get the Eastern Europeans to do it, they realise the meaning of hard work!!!

They gave us wheelie bins, then they wouldn't empty them if they were too heavy.
Now if they consider the green sacks are too heavy (can't be arsed more like) they just tag them and leave them.
All in aid of the central gov't green agenda, like the 2 weekly collections...

Utterly ridiculous situation, and I'm completely on the side of the residents. Can't help thinking, rather than worry about the health hazard, why not just get it cleared up themselves? Yes, it's something the council should be doing, but they're not, and if the residents are genuinely concerned about the health aspect, rather than just digging their heels in to make the council do their job, why not club together to pay for it to be removed privately, and either bill the council or knock it off their council tax bills? I reckon they'd have a good case for withholding council tax in lieu of the costs, and it'd be worth going to court over

I wouldn't live with such a health hazard, simply because it was someone elses job to clear it up

The council are quite simply LYING - they can and DO collect refuse sacks. I even get an apology when they fail to do so. The council have, since July 2008, apparently been unable to supply me with the wheelie bins which I am entitled to. I have an e-mail sent by a member of the ActionLine team in July instructing me to leave black bags with my refuse in outside my property and that the bin-men will collect them. They generally do. When they do not I phone or e-mail the council to complain and ask where my bins are. They apologise and the two or sometimes three weeks of rubbish in bin-bags is collected the following week.

I live in Calmore and we dont have wheelie bins, our NFDC binmen collect bags. As far as I know none are adversely affected by doing this as they are obviously supplied with gloves, clothing to suit the job etc. If they can do it, why cant other councils binmen do it?
For sake of local residents health I agree with Georgem on this one.

to say that to take two bags from on top a bin is against health and safety what would they call it know about health and safety how rediculous its red tape gone mad what is this country coming to it have gone to the dogs well what it needs is someone to load it all in a van and dump it on the steps of the council im sure they will have it removed then health and safety or not after all look at the council tax we pay its about time they all got their act together

I fail to see how this looks any different from the rest of Eastleigh...

i live in these flats, and i think its absolutly discusting and the council are mad, we pay our tax so they should be providing this service. everytime i go to the bins i have to see this and it makes me feel sick its discusting.

rainbow20 wrote:
i live in these flats, and i think its absolutly discusting and the council are mad, we pay our tax so they should be providing this service. everytime i go to the bins i have to see this and it makes me feel sick its discusting.

The word you are struggling for might be "disgusting".

Many of these comments have made me very angry. I am not associated in any way with the Council or dustmen, but some comments actually show up the ignorance, stupidity and downright arrogance of some contributers.

Rules are there for reasons. The rules applying to rubbish collection and dustmen, are in the main, reasonable and sensible. Councils have handbooks as to their rules and in this case they have been blatantly ignored.

1. Provision of wheeliebins, apart from other reasons which I won't go into, mean that dustmen no longer have to endure industrial injury, back and upper body problems, which resulted in time off work which the Council taxpayer and the NHS had to fund.
2. Ditto, some of the things that unthinking people put in their waste which resulted in injury. ie gashed legs and arms due to sharp objects not being properly wrapped up. So davec07870, Eastleigh your arrogant comments are just that. Arrogant. In this day and age there is no need to put people at a health risk, and being a manual worker is not necessarily reflective of a person's intelligence. Either way, where would you be if people were not prepared to do manual work?
3. Side waste in bags on the side is not allowed both for the above reasons AND in addition, the modern dustcarts are designed to only take and lift wheeliebins, so throwing a bag into the back is in most cases impossible.
4. Dustmen in the past have been accused of stealing when they have taken what they thought was a bag of, or apparant rubbish, put out for them on the side, an additional reason why side waste will not be collected. All waste has to be in a wheeliebin. If it is too big or heavy then special collections can be arranged for a fee.
5. Yes, Duncan/ When the Council cannot provide a wheeliebin, usually because the supplier cannot supply, then yes, they say leave a black bag but your address is noted. A special collection is then arranged at the Council's expense because it is at fault. This does not apply to addresses where wheelie bins are provided, and neither should it.
6. Neil of Eastleigh. If a wheelie bin is too heavy, the mechanism on the lorries cannot lift it. Stupid. What on earth have you got in your bin that weighs so much? Ordinary household waste, I think not.

Far from being "jobsworths" most dustmen are abiding by the rules which help protect them from injury. It is about time they were given the credit they deserve.
The uncaring person who left the side waste at this site in the first place is the person who is at fault. Find out who it is and make them pay for the special collection that the Council will now have to make. At the expense of other householders who abide by the rules.

rainbow20 wrote:
i live in these flats, and i think its absolutly discusting and the council are mad, we pay our tax so they should be providing this service. everytime i go to the bins i have to see this and it makes me feel sick its discusting.

Frankly, I think you're insane to carry on living with such conditions. If it really is a health hazard, then get it moved. "Why should I? I pay my council tax!" I hear you cry: well, it seems you really are more concerned with whose job it is than hygiene matters. You're now basically choosing to live with this squalor

Vonnie wrote:
Many of these comments have made me very angry. I am not associated in any way with the Council or dustmen, but some comments actually show up the ignorance, stupidity and downright arrogance of some contributers. Rules are there for reasons. The rules applying to rubbish collection and dustmen, are in the main, reasonable and sensible. Councils have handbooks as to their rules and in this case they have been blatantly ignored. 1. Provision of wheeliebins, apart from other reasons which I won't go into, mean that dustmen no longer have to endure industrial injury, back and upper body problems, which resulted in time off work which the Council taxpayer and the NHS had to fund. 2. Ditto, some of the things that unthinking people put in their waste which resulted in injury. ie gashed legs and arms due to sharp objects not being properly wrapped up. So davec07870, Eastleigh your arrogant comments are just that. Arrogant. In this day and age there is no need to put people at a health risk, and being a manual worker is not necessarily reflective of a person's intelligence. Either way, where would you be if people were not prepared to do manual work? 3. Side waste in bags on the side is not allowed both for the above reasons AND in addition, the modern dustcarts are designed to only take and lift wheeliebins, so throwing a bag into the back is in most cases impossible. 4. Dustmen in the past have been accused of stealing when they have taken what they thought was a bag of, or apparant rubbish, put out for them on the side, an additional reason why side waste will not be collected. All waste has to be in a wheeliebin. If it is too big or heavy then special collections can be arranged for a fee. 5. Yes, Duncan/ When the Council cannot provide a wheeliebin, usually because the supplier cannot supply, then yes, they say leave a black bag but your address is noted. A special collection is then arranged at the Council's expense because it is at fault. This does not apply to addresses where wheelie bins are provided, and neither should it. 6. Neil of Eastleigh. If a wheelie bin is too heavy, the mechanism on the lorries cannot lift it. Stupid. What on earth have you got in your bin that weighs so much? Ordinary household waste, I think not. Far from being "jobsworths" most dustmen are abiding by the rules which help protect them from injury. It is about time they were given the credit they deserve. The uncaring person who left the side waste at this site in the first place is the person who is at fault. Find out who it is and make them pay for the special collection that the Council will now have to make. At the expense of other householders who abide by the rules.

Well said Vonnie.

The only I do have against our binmen is that, although the rules are very clear regarding the positioning of the bins to facilitate collection, why do they insist on blocking my (or sometimes even my neighbours) driveway with my bin once it has been emptied? I do feel that this rule should work both ways.

You take a look at the bags and a lot are not in refuse sacks or tied up. The residence cant be bothered to do the simplest of things but expect the bin men to bend over backwards for them, and they have the cheek to call the bin men lazy :o(