A RUBBISH IDEA

East Renfrewshire council has changed all its refuse policies recently to save money on landfill bills. Their new idea of collecting rubbish fortnightly instead of weekly of course means those who didn't recycle before are now forced to. Given there are seven of us, our refuse has never fitted in the bin without recycling absolutely everything down to the smallest yogurt pot and we've needed to use a garden composter for years so it isn't really affecting us very much. The problem we are having is their new food waste policy. We've always put the vegetable waste in the garden dalek so the brown bin has only ever been used for weeds. The council has decided to incinerate all food waste now - chicken carcasses, spaghetti, beans and the likes. We're meant to put it in the brown bin so that's what we've been doing. The weather of course has been sub-zero since the end of November. So every day we chuck out food waste and it freezes solid to the bottom of our brown bin. Every Friday the bin lorry turns up, two men jump out and hook on our brown bin, turn it upside down, the frozen food stays firmly stuck to the inside of the bin, they return our bin and drive off. Isn't that an impressive use of council funds? A troop of men driving round all day tipping up brown bins completely aimlessly. I wonder why no one at the end depot is asking why the truck is returning empty after every seven hour shift? It'll be interesting as the season goes on. I reckon our brown bin waste will reach the brim round about spring by which time the rotting food will really start to stink as it thaws! I can hardly wait :-/

EXCELLENT...WELL ALMOST

For years now I have been pointing out to the council (East Renfrewshire) that this is a residential area that people move to to get their kids into decent schools and as such most families around here have kids. Kids drink a lot of milk, water, diluting juice, coke, fanta etc all of which come in large plastic bottles. They eat a lot of yogurt from plastic cartons. They get dirty outside so use a lot of shampoo, clothing detergents etc which all come in large plastic bottles - so why the hell do they recycle everything except plastic???? Every time I have rung them or emailed them since 2001, they have told me they are 'looking in to the matter, and the service should be available later in the year'.
So this morning I am sitting here with my coffee, when a wee leaflet gets posted through my door by the council telling me their new refuse policy. Excellent, I thought... well until I read the small print - your 110 litre bag will be emptied monthly. 110 litres monthly???? Are they insane? I won't be able to get out my back door for 3 of the 4 weeks for the mountain of milk bottles. Ho hum.

A SHOWER OF ROBBERS!

I finally got to the bottom of my tree pile mystery. Four days after East Renfrewshire council was meant to take away my trees (and 4 days after they cashed my £20 payment), I get a hand delivered letter through my door explaining why they haven't removed them. When I booked the uplift, I was informed that the £20 covered 15 minutes of 2 men working, ie 30 man-minutes. When Thomas cut the (very small) trees down the week before, I watched him move them from all around the garden into a pile on the patio - this took approximately 12 minutes. I timed him because I knew the council's policy. So it took 1 man 12 minutes to pile up my trees. The council's letter claims that because my pile of trees is so big, it will cost me £70 to have them removed from my garden. As the distance is the same as Thomas moved them, they are telling me 2 men would take 52.5 minutes to move my trees, or 1 man would take 1hr45 minutes to move my trees the same distance as Thomas took 12 minutes to move them. I have to conclude that:

• The council employs 1-legged, 1-armed refuse collectors, or
• The council employs slow, lazy layabouts, or
• The council is a dishonest money-grabbing institution.

I'll leave you to decide which theory is likely to be the most accurate.
I phoned them and told them to re-credit my visa card with £20 as their quote was outrageous, explained the above to them and decided that if it is the last thing I do, I will spend the rest of year cutting these trees into little pieces and putting them in my brown refuse bin so that the council will slowly but surely be obliged to remove them all from my garden free of charge! Don't mess with me East Ren!

EAST RENFREWSHIRE COUNCIL

You can't fault their consistency! For the second time this month I have phoned them and paid £20 for a bulk uplift of refuse (some cut-down trees this time), and for the second time the nominated day for collection has come and gone without them showing their faces - well done them! Grrrr!

CALL ME PSYCHIC

Call me psychic - I almost blogged this yesterday morning, sure it would happen before it happened but stupidly I gave them the benefit of the doubt!
Last week I was indignant to find out that East Renfrewshire council expects me to pay for a bulk uplift of rubbish I didn't want to take in my car to the dump (a fridge, freezer etc). Indignant because Glasgow city council doesn't charge and I have only just moved back to this council district.
Anyway - after 3 days tripping over an unsightly pile of fridges, freezers and packaging in my back garden, suddenly £20 seemed an easier option than 3 trips to the local dump with 4 kids in the car.
I rang them Tuesday and inquired about their refuse pick-ups. I was told I should pay £20 for 2 men to work in my garden for 15 minutes. Hold on then, I thought, a fridge and a freezer don't take 15 minutes so I booked the council, got a job number and asked them to pick up all the rubbish in my back garden, assuming I could make quite a pile by Friday. Oh no - they said, you can't say that - we only pick up things specified because otherwise they might accidentally take your garden table or kid's trampoline and you'll try and sue us - whatever happened to common sense and human judgement? Ho hum... Ok I'll make a list and get back to you, I told them. Be sure to quote your job number and you have to ring before Thursday at 2pm so we can draw the lists up for the vans, they replied. So Wednesday Dad and I moved some planks, some shelves, a kitchen worktop, a sink, and an old door onto the pile, and despite the rain and gales I even added a chair and a stool. I paid Marcel £2 to neatly arrange my pile by gathering rubbish from all over the garden in the freezing cold so the numpties couldn't miss it. I rang at 5pm Wednesday, I gave them my number. I asked them to read the list for that job number - a fridge, a freezer, some packaging. I told them to add some planks, some shelves, a kitchen worktop, a sink, an old door, a chair and a stool to the list. I made them read me back the list:
a fridge
a freezer
packaging
some planks
some shelves
a kitchen worktop
a sink
an old door
a chair
a stool
On Friday morning I opened the curtains - the fridge was gone, the freezer was gone, everything had been moved a metre to the right and the packaging had been taken from the bottom of the pile. I rang them and gave my job number, I asked them to read me my list, assuming the Wednesday numpty hadn't saved the complete list and common sense had taken flight when the guys were moving my rubbish off my rubbish to get to my rubbish but no, she read my whole list. Oh I'm sure they'll be back she replied. (Too bloody right they will!) By 4pm they weren't back - she insisted they still hadn't finished for the the day but if by any chance they still hadn't taken the rest by the end of the day, I should ring again Monday and she'll send them back free of charge. Given I am not likely to be in the best of moods Monday, as it is my unspeakable birthday, they bloody better!

A PLANNING APPLICATION AND A LOAD OF RUBBISH

I've been having fun today talking to East Renfrewshire Council . First I had to phone them because of the kitchen saga. When I rang MFI yesterday for an appointment, they informed me they wouldn't design me a new kitchen unless I already had a building warrant to move my kitchen into another room - sorry? I have to pay the council money for a planning application to change the internal layout of the rooms in my house, to improve them for my own use, in a way that no one from the outside can see, and wait 8 weeks for the paperwork - 8 weeks in kitchen hell - give me a break!? (Oh this also applies to turning a cupboard into a toilet... must mention to mum and dad they live in an unsellable house with an illegal shoe cupboard!) A great start - grrr - bloody council.

Later today when trying to put out my bin, but being unable to, as it was full half way through the week as always, I got the idea to ring the council once more. This time I asked for the refuse department and asked how I went about getting an extra wheelie bin. Oh you can't, came the reply, we encourage recycling you see! Yes I know you encourage recycling - that's why I already put all my glass, paper, tins etc in my blue bin but you see 6 people create more than one bin of non-recyclable rubbish a week. I pointed out my bin was the same size as my parents' bin three streets away and enquired whether the little girl on the switchboard thought that 2 pensioners used the same bin capacity as 2 adults and 4 kids. Probably not but the only solution is to recycle more, she told me she could offer me a free extra blue recycling bin but no extra normal bin! So from now on I guess I need to buy beer instead of milk for Léon as they recycle beer cans and bottles but not plastic milk bottles. Oh and I should stick to tinned food instead of fresh as they'll recycle my tins but not fresh food packaging!

Oh and a final rant - I asked if they could make a bulk uplift from my address as my old fridge and freezer and packaging from the new one are currently making my garden look like a dump to save me spending a day driving up and down to the dump filling my beautiful car with dirty rubbish - sure they said - £20 per 15 minutes spent by their guys.

Remind me what it is I pay council tax for? Oh yeah - the decent schools...