Michael - best laugh in ages

Keep it up Michael

Mainly because I don't think you have a complete picture of how the services work, what the issues are and therefore unable to make an informed objective observation. And, by your own admission, you're not really impartial, are you?

Difficult to argue with that really.

Previous post was for Max. I hope that was obvious.

This one for Michael;

I think you know I feel strongly about what, and how well, Lewisham does all the time, and how all Lewisham's Customer Services divisions deserve and receive my full attention.
As to "an election coming on", don't worry, because the pre election period kicks in on 29th March 2010, so no more posts from me or any other prospective local Lewisham candidates. Can't speak for them, but I don't want to be accused of electioneering.

Dear Derby hill

I am told by a visiting wormery/compost expert that the different printing inks used on paper have no known or recorded adverse effect on the worms. So please keep adding shredded paper to them.

I think it would be a shame if prospective local candidates do not feel they can respond to questions of local forums when they are standing for election.

I agree with you Michael, especially as fora like this are ideal for discussion on important local issues.

Thanks Councillor Wise for the info about printing ink on shredded paper: I'm pleased to know that it's safe.

I am also delighted that the garden waste service will be back in action soon. I made good use of it last year. I found the best containers for bulk stuff are the builders maxi bags that usually get chucked away after a single use. Really big strong bags that dont get ripped up by brambles, roses and the like. But you need a big car to put them in. They are worth looking out for if there's any building work in your street.

Oops. I'll make that last bit clear: I meant look out for old bags rather than big cars in your street! Don't want to start a crime wave.

Just had the nice man from Lewisham call round to remind me to do my recycling properly: no plastic trays, and no stuff in black bags. And he's going to get me a new green box because mine is somewhat battered.

And FH Sainsburys has got a big plastic tube to collect dead batteries. Good idea as some of those old style rechargeables were full of cadmium, very poisonous.

Has anyone knows what happened to the green waste, which is put in the green bags?

My mum lives in Greenwich, and their recycling scheme is soooo much simpler than ours.
They have 3 bins (super ugly, but hey - what's new!)-
Blue top - for ALL recyclables (paper, all plastic, tin, glass etc)
Green top - for ALL garden and food waste
Black top - for anything else (collected bi weekly) - not much goes in here!

In fact, I save my 'other plastics' each week and take them to my mums to put in her blue bin.

My point is, if Lewisham now uses the same centre as Greenwich for unloading the recycling, then why is our collection so specific and oft confusing, my husband is still such a novice (sigh!).
Just my thoughts.

http://www.greenwich.gov.uk/Greenwich/Yo...Recycling/

Looks like Lewisham's recycling poilicy is changing all the time.

While we can only put thin supermarket carrier bags (LDPE) and all plastic bottles (drink, milk, detergent and shampoo bottles, for example) or plastic bottle lids in our green bin, we can now recycle the rest (Plastic bottles, ready meal trays, meat trays, fruit punnets, yogurt pots and margarine tubs) at Sava Centre Sydenham and Sainsbury’s New Cross Gate. No need to take them miles away to parents/in laws anymore

How long before we can recycle those other plastics in our Green bins or at Sainbury's Forest Hill?

very glad you are happy with the service and glad the "waste adviser" caught you in!

We used Lewisham's mattress recycling service a few weeks ago. We collected two stickers from the library, stuck them on the old mattresses and put them out on our regular collection day. Unfortunately, they didn't get picked up for days but a quick follow-up call to Lewisham call centre solved that within 24 hours.

Dear Lewisham Council. Having read, and understood the ugly sticker you so thoughtfully stuck to the side of my recycling bin, I removed it. Because it was ugly.

Please stop replacing it

I did chuckle when I saw them doing this one Monday. Sticking the info on the back of the bins out of sight

Think yourselves lucky you just got the sticker and weren't at home at the time. Our ceremonious and over demonstrative sticker sticking was accompanied by a patronising lecture on recycling delivered to us in the manner one would normally speak to small children.
Today however we (along with all other Lewisham residents) have received notification that our 240 l bin will very shortly be replaced with a 180 litre bin in an attempt to encourage more recycling.

I have therefore composed a letter to the Council as follows;

Dear XXX,

Thank you for your notification that you are to shortly replace our 240l standard refuse bin for one holding 180l. This is a reduction of 25%.
The idea is to encourage people to recycle more. Whilst this may work in some cases, from our perspective as well as being an illogical and misguided move, this generic ie one size fits all approach will give us considerable problems as we are a family of 5 with three children currently in disposable nappies ( 20 nappies per day = 140 per week- -and that's before any temporarily increased output due to illness) and hence we can barely fit everything in as it stands. In addition to nappies we have considerable output in the form of cotton wool, baby wipes, baby milk cartons and tubs etc, which are not recyclable. Our bin is usually overflowing by the Monday morning and we often have to ask neighbours to help out (our collection day is Wednesday).

We also currently diligently recycle everything we can , despite the current limitations on what Lewisham considers to be recyclable in comparison with many other boroughs, an issue itself. Our green bin is usually more than 50% full. We have a home shredder for letters and documents, the contents of which goes into our green bin.
In addition we have a home composter/wormery in the garden into which all suitable materials are placed such as eggshells, egg boxes, vegetable peelings etc and we also have another composter for grass cuttings. Overall therefore, we believe that we are doing are very best to minimise our refuse output, and that this move by Lewisham can only result in our general rubbish having to either lie on top of the bin or being left to the side of the bin and risk being ripped open by foxes and or rodents. We do not wish to impose such a thing on ourselves, our neighbours, or our local environment, therefore we ask that Lewisham carefully reconsider their decision and start perhaps with a more positive inducements to recycle such as free wormeries (some can now be kept indoors and in small flats), a voluntary scheme, and/or some discretion in the cases of larger families. It seems illogical that people's needs are not taken into account in some way and that single person households in our street will have the same rubbish allowance as a family of five. We do after all pay a considerable Council Tax whilst single person households pay a reduced amount.

In case and before anyone considers it appropriate to remind me of the generous local authority £30 allowance per child towards cloth nappies and poses the obvious question, let me say that ;
1)the acquisition of cloth nappy packs requires an initial capital outlay of at least £300 per child, for us nearly £1000.
2)there are considerable hidden costs of washing and drying. (Line drying is not always possible especially with such a tight turnaround time hence a tumble dryer is a necessity)

Finally, if this idea proceeds, I would like someone to tell me what we are supposed to do when our rubbish no longer fits into our reduced bin capacity and when our neighbours can no longer accommodate our overspill? Perhaps the Council could consider a separate and dedicated disposal service for nappies?

If the latter I would only be too pleased to drop our used nappies off at the Town Hall in order to save further Council expenditure- just let me know the precise location.

Yours,

R

My OH engaged in a "full and frank" discussion with the recycling man. who came round recently. To the extent that he didn't give us a leaflet, as we pointed out it would go straight in the recycling bin.

However, we've not been notified that we're getting a new black bin, and we only live a couple of streets away from Roz. What a waste - there's absolutely nothing wrong with our old bin and wouldn't it be "un-green" to replace it pointlessly? I wonder what will happen to the old bins? Can Cllr. Wise shed any light?

Nor did we have any stickers applied. We still use the green boxes (x 2) rather than a green bin, as we can hide those in the porch, whereas we've nowhere to store another wheely bin.

I don't think Cllr Wise can respond due to the rules around elections but I will be writing to her in any case.

Its only Saturday morning and our bin is already full with straightforward household waste of the non recyclable variety- three days to go and no where to put our rubbish other than our neighbours bins- thankfully some have agreed to let us as they are away for Easter.

If anyone has any statistics about household rubbish for a family of five including young children I'd appreciate seeing them as clearly something must have informed the Councils decision to reduce the bin sizes and ' rubbish quota'.!