RE: From Birmingham City Council - 2

Green Recycling. Having just witnessed the delivery of what I believe is the only green waste bin in our road I got to thinking about the money saving aspect of this.
There can be no contribution from the council Tax because only those paying the £35 will be getting anything collected.
Council Tax should be reduced for all those rated as having gardens because they no longer get what they were previously paying for.

My Accounts.
Cost of wheelie bin £ 50
Cost of delivery and registration £ 20

Cost for first year £ 70
Charge per year £ 35

The cost of collecting and recycling the contents will be the same as it was with the green bag system. The new bin lifting trucks will have to trundle along many of the same roads and the disposal facility will still have to be kept in operation.
The additional record keeping, microchipping, usage and cleaning rules enforcement plus fly tipping clean up will, being all council responsibilities, run into millions.
So the simple accounts for year one show a loss of £35 per customer excluding admin. Not a good start.
If the customer discontinues after year one the bin will have to be collected, another £20 loss per each.

If the customer completes two years the hardware breaks even but hasn't made anything to cover the first two years admin. If the customer cancels after two years then there is a setback of £20 to collect the bin, so only three years or more per customer will really give a hardware break even according to my own figures.

If take up is small, or ever changing, they will never recover the admin which is still an ongoing cost no matter how small the customer base.

Far better, in my opinion, to continue with the existing system but sell distinctive green bags at a reasonable cost.

The council Page…. http://www.birmingham.gov.uk/greenrecycling

Actually I think by far the best way is to have a free green bin , as we do in West Berkshire (one of the very few positives to living in west Berkshire).

Don't hold your breath Mike, all councils are facing major cuts.

Telford and Wrekin council are giving their residents new recycling bins, they already collect recycling from all houses, this is a new way to make it easier for residents. One bin for cans glass plastic bottles, instead of 3 different containers, cardboard and paper in a tub, they will take away the old containers free or you can keep them for your own use, this costs the residents nothing extra.

They have to find some way of gaining revenue as they have decided to sell off the NEC, etc. What gives them the right after all we paid for it? I know let's have a referendum on it - we could sell it off to Scotland and with all the money they will lose in selling it off cheap they could pay for the overspend on the central library! Is there anything I've missed?

The new Library was part of the plan to get rid of the smaller libraries and make people use the big one. Very soon the free bus passes will go so a large proportion of our ageing population will be kept away anyway.

There are in fact two of these bins an our road. They are grey with a brown lid.
Three men and one truck just emptied them.

From the BCC website at http://www.birmingham.gov.uk/wheeliebins

Last year the Council successfully bid for £30 million from central Government to improve waste collection services in Birmingham by moving to a city wide wheelie bin collection system.

Following a public consultation exercise and successful pilots in the Brandwood and Harborne wards, a report was discussed by the City Council on the 16th September to discuss and seek approval for wheelie bin recycling and refuse collections to be delivered across the City by December 2015.

The proposal agreed by Cabinet on the 16th September 2013 was that the city wide roll-out will be delivered on the following timetable:

From 2 June 2014 until 22 June 2014
Ladywood District: Aston, Ladywood, Nechells and Soho Wards

August – December 2014
Hodge Hill District: Bordesley Green, Hodge Hill, Shard End and Washwood Heath Wards
Hall Green District: Hall Green, Moseley and Kings Heath, Sparkbrook and Springfield Wards
Yardley District: Acocks Green, Sheldon, South Yardley, Stetchford and Yardley North Wards

February – June 2015
Erdington District: Erdington, Kingstanding, Stockland Green and Tyburn Wards
Perry Barr District: Handsworth Wood, Lozells & East Handsworth, Oscott and Perry Barr Wards
Sutton Coldfield District: Sutton Four Oaks, Sutton New Hall, Sutton Trinity and Sutton Vesey Wards

August – December 2015
Edgbaston District: Bartley Green, Edgbaston, Harborne and Quinton Wards
Northfield District: Kings Norton, Longbridge, Northfield and Weoley Wards
Selly Oak District: Billesley, Bournville, Brandwood, and Selly Oak Wards

well if they think i am going to try and drag wheelie bins up and down my steps they can think again..i can see lots of folk just leaving them on the pavements and taking the rubbish to them...i have heard that londons pavements are littered with them...