‘Off-loading’
Dear Editor:
RE: County eyeing switch to cart-based garbage collection system, May 7.
I am concerned about the impending introduction of wheeled waste bins to both the urban and rural parts of the county.
I am familiar with these bins since I have used them for years at my part-time residence in a large urban municipality. In that context they’re fine; I wheel them back and forth to the street down my 10m walkway. They hold lots, roll easily, are sturdily made, and the lid keep the contents dry. But they are also large (even the “medium” sized ones we need there) and quite heavy, even when empty.
At my other part-time home in Wellington North my house is located down a 300m gravel laneway from the road. I currently load my light-weight blue bins, garbage bags, and small organics bin into the back of my mid-sized SUV to take them to the road on collection days.
If the current luggable blue bins, garbage bags and small organics bin are all replaced by larger wheeled bins I know from personal experience that they will not fit into my vehicle, that they will be too large and heavy to manually roll up my laneway to the road and so I will have no practical means to move them back and forth from my house.
I have been told by my county councilor that this change is not the result of residents’ requests. It is the result of the waste management company’s difficulty in hiring and retaining staff to do the current “manual” collection, and the incidence of injuries being claimed by their staff. Apparently the bins will permit them to automate the collection process; the drivers will operate a mechanical arm to manoeuvre the bins.
It seems to me that what these bins are really doing is off-loading a large part of the physical effort (and apparently the risk of injury) from the firms that are paid to do this work to the residents of the county and that this will burden those with remote homes.
I urge the residents of rural parts of the county to consider how they will manage this change, and if they too are concerned to contact their ward’s councillor.
Steve Bowley,
Wellington North