Smaller bins 'punish' residents

The new bins (centre) are slimmer than the current bins (left)

Residents who rejected plans for fortnightly rubbish collections are being given smaller bins.

Council leaders at Rushmoor, Hampshire, are distributing a new 140-litre bin to replace the current 240-litre bin.

They are being accused of "punishing" householders in the borough who used a survey to demand their bins were emptied each week.

But the council defended the move and insisted it was offering a new "comprehensive" service.

Farnborough resident Keith Parkins, of Church Road East, said: "We see it as punishment.

Our residents were concerned about odour and flies, we've listened to them David Quirk Rushmoor Borough Council

"It will cost us money. Halving the size of the bin does not half the waste in a household."

Doretta Cox, of the national Campaign for Weekly Waste Collection, said: "The councils must be aware that their responsibility is to provide a service to the general public, not to punish us, or fine us, but to get us to work with them so we can see recycling rates shoot up."

The move is expected to cost £750,000 and Paul Bettison of the Local Government Association said it would cause more pollution.

He said: "Smaller bins create problems in that if you do the same round with smaller bins you still need to do the round as often and often residents like that because it can be weekly.

"But then what happens is the truck is doing the same round, consuming the same fuel, polluting the atmosphere to the same amount but now only half full."

Resident Keith Parkins has criticised the council's new smaller bins

Nationally council's are under strict government targets to increase their recycling rates to 40%.

In Rushmoor - which covers about 90,000 residents in the area of Aldershot and Farnborough - the current rate is 26% and David Quirk, the council's head of environmental services, said the new service is the best way to reduce waste.

"We are offering a comprehensive waste service," he said.

"We will collect the 140 bin weekly. Our residents were concerned about odour and flies, we've listened to them and we won't go ahead with alternate weekly collections.

"If you are recycling everything you can then we will take away the excess waste."