No
wheelie bins before 2009By Viv Robins, Clerk to The Lee Parish Council
Despite our seasonal article to the contrary, the controversial new scheme for domestic waste collection is not likely to be introduced into The Lee until the autumn of next year, the leader of Chiltern District Council John Warder told last month’s meeting of The Lee Parish Council.
Cllr Warder, whose portfolio before he became leader was in waste management, said the scheme had been forced on local councils by the increasingly draconian penalties being imposed by government on the continuing use of landfill sites for waste disposal.
Under the scheme, already in operation over half the CDC District, black and green wheelie bins are emptied on alternate weeks. The green bins are intended for compostable material only, with everything else going into the black bin. However Cllr Warder said that in warm weather meat or animal protein which might otherwise attract maggots could be put in whichever of the two bins was next due for emptying (providing it was properly wrapped).
Cllr Warder said there was currently no date for the introduction of wheelie bins to The Lee because the CDC needed to increase its capacity for composting animal protein before it could extend the scheme throughout the District, if indeed it took the decision to do so. That additional capacity was not likely to be available until the end of September next year.
Mindful perhaps of recent lurid headlines about the draconian measures taken by some councils to enforce the scheme Cllr Warder was at pains to insist that the CDC currently had no intention of micro-chipping bins or of fining those who failed to re-cycle. But in the face of some hostile questioning from members of the public, who expressed concerns on issues ranging from the size and appearance of the wheelie bins through the risk of vermin to the danger of increased fly-tipping, Cllr Warder said he was in no doubt that the scheme would eventually be extended across the District, The Lee not excepted.