Meeting to be held over bin collections

IT’S understood that council officers and elected reps are to meet with contractors Bryson, after weeks of missed or messy bin and recycling box collections.

At the meeting of the Operations Committee of Antrim and Newtownabbey Borough Council last week, councillors queued up to let staff know of the complaints they’d received from local residents about the situation.

There have been a number of issues since the roll-out of new recycling boxes and smaller black bins, which began in the legacy Antrim Borough Council area in September.

At the meeting, staff said that missed collections last week were mainly down to ‘significant’ sickness and absence levels in the contractor’s workforce, plus bad weather and contamination, adding that soft, flexible plastics like bread wrappers and crisp packets cannot be recycled at home and need to be taken to a participating supermarket.

It was also noted that external monitors from The Waste and Resources Action Programme in Wales would be on the ground this week to observe any issues.

The council’s Bin Checker was also said to be malfunctioning, with residents encouraged to use the ‘chatbot’ function on the website, while staff field twice the normal volume of calls. Local people are also being encouraged to take pictures of any issues.

Lynsey Daly, Head of Waste Strategy & Sustainability, admitted that social media ‘messaging’ had not been getting across to residents and that ‘influencers’ may be utilised to help. There were also said to be IT issues and Royal Mail delays in delivering notification and information letters.

Antrim Town Alliance rep Neil Kelly said that ratepayers need to have their confidence restored, while Dunsilly DUP Councillor Linda Clarke reported how one side of a road in her constituency had their containers collected but not the other, and that a Randalstown woman had been blocked in her driveway due to the number of empty bins and boxes left at her gate.

Airport Sinn Fein rep Anne Marie Logue called situation ‘nothing short of a disaster’.

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