Cornwall Council’s continuing rubbish failure

Cornwall Council’s recycling collection incompetence, reported recently here, continues to cause distress to local taxpayers. Not only are residents being baffled by a complex array of colour coded bags and boxes, which change from area to area, but the contracted refuse collectors are not even removing the recycled rubbish on time—some left uncollected for over a month.

The situation has reached such a state that South East Cornwall’s MP has had to intervene after photographs in the local newspaper showed the streets of the pretty fishing port of Looe strewn with garbage.Normally steering clear of council business, Sheryll Murray MP has been forced to get involved, encouraging local people to attend a meeting on the subject on May 12th at Looe Community Academy. ‘It is not only the obvious health concerns,’ she said, ‘but also the impact it may have on the tourism sector, which is such a large employer in my constituency.’

Picking up on the bad publicity created by the council’s confusing array of colour coded recycling, an opposition spokesman said: ‘It seems everyone in Cornwall recognises the chaos caused by the council’s incompetence over the new waste and recycling contract.’ But there is worse. Not only are locals baffled, but their bins are not being emptied on time. ‘The last straw,’ says an angry councillor, ‘was when residents of Bonson Close, a sheltered accommodation complex, contacted me because they had not had their recycling collected for over four weeks, despite it being reported several times. This is disgraceful; the elderly should not be subjected to this sort of stress.’

Calls to help centres have gone unanswered and collections missed. Critics are amazed the situation hasn’t been dealt with more urgently as Sheryll Murray MP’s office manager just happens to be the wife of the councillor in charge of waste management! Surely, they could have had a few quiet words about it?

‘I have been appalled by the sheer scale of the failure of the contract and the lack of ability on the part of the council to remedy the situation,’ says another local councillor. ‘I fear the end result will be that people will decide recycling is just too much hassle—especially those with no place to store the box and bags—and we shall in fact send even more to landfill.’

Please keep us informed about the latest costly twists in Cornwall Council’s torturous recycling contract.Cornwall Council’s recycling collection incompetence, reported recently here, continues to cause distress to local taxpayers. Not only are residents being baffled by a complex array of colour coded bags and boxes, which change from area to area, but the contracted refuse collectors are not even removing the recycled rubbish on time—some left uncollected for over a month.

The situation has reached such a state that South East Cornwall’s MP has had to intervene after photographs in the local newspaper showed the streets of the pretty fishing port of Looe strewn with garbage.Normally steering clear of council business, Sheryll Murray MP has been forced to get involved, encouraging local people to attend a meeting on the subject on May 12th at Looe Community Academy. ‘It is not only the obvious health concerns,’ she said, ‘but also the impact it may have on the tourism sector, which is such a large employer in my constituency.’

Picking up on the bad publicity created by the council’s confusing array of colour coded recycling, an opposition spokesman said: ‘It seems everyone in Cornwall recognises the chaos caused by the council’s incompetence over the new waste and recycling contract.’ But there is worse. Not only are locals baffled, but their bins are not being emptied on time. ‘The last straw,’ says an angry councillor, ‘was when residents of Bonson Close, a sheltered accommodation complex, contacted me because they had not had their recycling collected for over four weeks, despite it being reported several times. This is disgraceful; the elderly should not be subjected to this sort of stress.’

Calls to help centres have gone unanswered and collections missed. Critics are amazed the situation hasn’t been dealt with more urgently as Sheryll Murray MP’s office manager just happens to be the wife of the councillor in charge of waste management! Surely, they could have had a few quiet words about it?

‘I have been appalled by the sheer scale of the failure of the contract and the lack of ability on the part of the council to remedy the situation,’ says another local councillor. ‘I fear the end result will be that people will decide recycling is just too much hassle—especially those with no place to store the box and bags—and we shall in fact send even more to landfill.’

Please keep us informed about the latest costly twists in Cornwall Council’s torturous recycling contract.
This website uses cookies to ensure you get the best experience.  More info. Okay