Liverpool Life Vol 2 Issue 2

Page 1

Liverpool

Life

www.jmu-journalism.org.uk

8th October 2013

Sticking it to chewers

CITY BIN FURY

‘There was anarchy on streets when the bin men went on strike!’

‘Don’t blame us bin men!’

Twitter users row over plans to scrap weekly bin collections By Nathan Pearce

Liverpool is fighting back against irresponsible gum chewers with a new campaign aimed at reducing the sticky mess on our pavements. Full story on page 3. Picture by Laura Ryder

A Twitter storm has erupted over the council’s decision to cut bin collections for more than 100,000 Liverpool homes at the end of the month. Liverpool’s 80,000 terrace houses will continue having weekly collections of their purple bins but the city’s remaining 136,000 houses will face the new fortnightly collection of their waste. Liverpool residents reacted angrily on Twitter to the news with some claiming favouritism for residents who lived in terrace housing. Twitter user @DoubleUSee said: “If we all pay towards Council Tax and services, no reason why type of house/street warrants favourable treatment.” Other Twitter users raised concerns over time scale, council tax fees, council spending and storage issues with large families. Twitter user @alidan51 said: “There was anarchy on the streets when the bin men went on strike for two weeks so how is this going to work.” Another user @Mark_85 said: “Makes you wonder if they’re doing this to save £1m a year, why did they buy Finch Farm for £13m. Another Tweeter @WEARE

CASTRO said: “How about charging council staff for parking, get rid of the mayor’s car and scrap council hospitality allowance. #hypocrisy” User @evertonmad1878 said: “so does that mean a reduction in council tax?” Similarly, user @VAMOSMH said: “I look forward to receiving the discount in council tax due to the reduced service.” The changes to the collections mean that purple household waste bins will now be collected fortnightly with blue recycling bins being collected in the alternating week. The scheme aims to reduce council costs and increase recycling across the city when they come in to effect on October 28th. A spokesperson for GrotSpots Liverpool, a local environmental group, said: “We are concerned that the introduction of fortnightly collections will lead to an increase in dumping, flytipping and littering as residents’ bins are filled well in advance of their collection. When bins are full it is only a matter of time before people turn to illicit disposal methods.” Liverpool Councillors initially voted in favour of an alternate weekly collections scheme in January despite Mayor Joe Anderson promising to keep the

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weekly collections in the run up to the 2012 mayoral election. The council hope that the new scheme will save around £1m a year and increase recycling by 10 per cent. Councillor Steve Munby, cabinet member for living environment and localism, said: “It costs us about £32m a year on collecting, recycling and disposing waste in the city. “But this is not just an exercise in reducing costs – it is about the environmental impact it will have. The evidence is clear that those councils which have managed weekly collections have the highest recycling rates. Our recycling rate has remained stagnant at about 26% for the last couple of years.” The recycling rate for Liverpool is considerably lower than the county’s average of 37% and remains behind other major cities which have an average of 30.07%. GrotSpots added: “We worry that the recycle bins will become contaminated with general waste and end up in landfill. If people have more general waste than their bins can take, the only outcome will be an increase in dumping.” Liverpool households will receive information packs about the changes and new collection dates in the coming weeks.


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