Edinburgh Council’s Waste & Cleansing Service has undertaken a review of communal bin services across the city, including the New Town. This includes a wider review of waste management services currently offered to residents. The broad intent is to bring about improvements to a service that is widely seen by residents to be inadequate.
To date, there has been little or no consultation with residents in the New Town and less than adequate consultation elsewhere in the City about these proposals, in contrast to what has been done in the past.
While the Council’s proposals are aimed at promoting a much welcomed increase in recycling capacity, this is intended to be achieved through siting groups of communal bins in fixed “bin hubs” across the New Town. Each ‘bin hub’ will consist of up to six bins for Food, Glass & Recycling along with General (non-recyclable) Waste. The initial proposals state that these will be set out either in lines along the kerb (up to 8 metres in length) or in a square configuration (approx 4 metres by 4 metres). These ‘hubs’ will serve about 50 properties and be located so that each one is no more than 50 metres walking distance from any property. The Council also intends to cease doorstep collections on certain streets for Food, Glass and Recyclables – as well as end the use of the Gull Proof Sack service for approximately 2,500 homes in the New Town.
There is a “drop-in” session for the Broughton area covering these proposals at Broughton St Mary Church on Bellevue Crescent on Wednesday 17 November between 9:45 am -1:45 pm. Although we are aware that some residents have now received notification of this very recently, many others may not be aware of either the current proposal or the opportunity being available to discuss with Council officers the details of what’s proposed.
Whilst this may not be a convenient time for some, we would encourage everyone who can to go along to get a better understanding of what is being proposed and make their views known.