Moray Conservatives seek council rethink on bin collections

MORAY Council's Conservative group have called on the SNP administration to rethink waste collection as a priority.

While welcoming this week's decision to accept more types of plastic waste in purple bins, the group is calling for a return to fortnightly recycling bin collections and the scrapping of the booking system to use recycling centres.

Conservative Councillor Tim Eagle (Buckie) said: "Since the first lockdown bins have been moved to a three-weekly collection.

"Whilst some households have managed this well, others have struggled to fit three weeks' worth of plastic, cardboard and tins into their bins.

"We have argued for a while that this needs to be reviewed. These calls led to a climbdown of the current administration's proposals in this year's budgets to maintain the three-weekly collection permanently.

"The news that the council can now accept more types of plastic waste is great and I hope everyone will work hard to maintain and exceed our already high level of recycling. However, to ensure we do this the council simply must revert to the original two-weekly recycling bin collection.

"The council maintain this is essential whilst Covid restrictions are still in place yet this is by no means the actions of other councils across Scotland. East Lothian are moving towards weekly recycling bin collections to enhance collection rates, Aberdeen have two-weekly collections, as do Midlothian.

"On top of this we still find ourselves in the situation that Moray residents need to book to use recycling centres. We have seen an increase in complaints of fly-tipping since this was introduced. It is time we scrapped this booking system and went back to normal. Again councils like North Ayrshire, Aberdeen, Midlothian don’t require their residents to book, so why do we?"

Cllr Eagle added: "I have the utmost respect for officers that have worked to provide a service during a tough time, but as we hopefully see Moray's Covid level drop in the coming days, it's high time the SNP reviewed these policies immediately and ensured a return to the previous waste service for the people of Moray and whatever is needed to deliver that."

The council can now accept all PET 1, HPDE 2 and PP 5 plastics in purple bins, including pots, tubs and trays.

Plastics which can’t be recycled and should go into green bins are marked PVC 3, LDPE 4, PS 6, or 7, and include materials like cling film, carrier bags, crisp packets, coffee pods, polystyrene soft foam, and plastic toys.