Open Letter Bin Collections

It appears that the government’s bin madness knows no bounds since the latest attack on one of the most basic public services is to remove all Council’s legal requirement to empty bins. This would mean that householders would be subjected to various petty dictates about weight, position and contents of their bin. If any of these rules were breached a bin would not be emptied and a fine possibly imposed.

 This comes after the government’s plans to end weekly bin collection and to introduce pay as you throw schemes that are really another locally levied tax aided via micro chipped bins.  Taken together with the understanding that even though there have been retreats on some of these issue all of them are either planned or have legislation in place for future implementation, it is possible to see the full reality of what is being proposed. If Labour had any integrity they would be honest with the electorate and have an open debate about the end of municipal rubbish collection and the obvious privatisation that these various policies amount to.

 The system as proposed by Labour would do nothing for a City such as Liverpool that already has great problems with waste. What is needed is not a revolution that ends the system of rubbish collection but the consistent application and enforcement of the approach already in place. The resent developments in recycling services have been a success and with a more robust attitude to dumping our main problems could be with reach of being dealt with. The last thing Liverpool needs is a convoluted system that will only prove a spur to dumping and the abandonment of waste. The governments proposals are about service cuts, privatisation and tax raising not the environmental welfare of our City.

 Yours sincerely,

 Cllrs Steve Radford & Chris Lenton, Liverpool Liberal Party.