bin

									21st of August, 2020

Reference your letter dated “August 2020” (I would have given an actual reference number or date, but you neglected to put either on the letter itself)
I have received today the slightly patronising letter from yourselves.
I say patronising because it comes across as a stock letter with no regard to the reasons I cannot have these bins delivered to my property (for example, that I do not have the room to store them, which I consider a pretty fundamental issue. Unless you are expecting me to keep them in my living room? Maybe I could sit them on my sofa?)
But I will go though it for you step by step. The indented sections are from your letter, and my replies follow each section.
	You recently contacted us to say you do not want us to deliver 2 new recycling bins to your home
This is correct, I have neither the space for them, or the time to deal with items I cannot use (this will be explained later).
I will skip the paragraph on it being too late to stop them being delivered, only to note that the most likely outcome of this will be that I will provide you with the crime number when they are stolen on delivery day like so many of the other bins you have attempted to deliver to my house.
	Please try the bins when they arrive
“Please try the bins you will probably never see, due to the issue of your bins being stolen on delivery day, and do not have room to store.” I have lived here for 18 years. I have had 9 Green wheelie bins. Some of them I only found out had been delivered when chasing them up, to find they had been delivered and stolen weeks before, without any knowledge of even their delivery by myself.
Indeed, the next bin to that one was delivered by a member of your staff throwing it off the back of a Ford Transit flat bed, over my 2 metre high wall, into my garden. I would have loved to see the RAMS for that, but I failed to find having heavy items thrown into my property in any way amusing.
It was around this time that you started to charge for replacement bins, and I could no longer afford to put a bin out, given every collection would cost me the price of a replacement green bin.
Due to the current pandemic, however, I have actually been at home some Wednesdays (my area’s collection day), and thanks to this you can now be proud of that fact your crews have manage 3 bin collections from this property in the past 5 years. That is an average of 1 collection every 86.6 weeks.
	More and more people in your area are recycling
Yes, and over the past few years, I estimate I have sent over 2000Kg to recycling. Of which collection by North East Lincolnshire Council from my property as of this date totals 0Kg.
	Recycling is good for the environment, saves energy and helps tackle climate change.
Thank you for this patronising sentence to someone who does everything she can to recycle everything she can possibly recycle, but can’t use kerbside collections.
	If you do not want to keep the bins after they have been delivered, we would like to make clear that: recycling collections will be four-weekly in the New Year with a wider range of plastics being able to be recycled from that time
The timing of collections I have never used is a non-issue.
	We will not be able to collect recycling from your home without the new bins
You have never collected a single item of recycling from my home, so I again fail to see why you think this is an issue?
	Our crews won’t take recycling presented in any other type of container once bins have been delivered to your area.
Again, your crews have collected 0Kg of the estimated 2000Kg+ of recycling that I have done. I fail to see why not being able to put nothing out will impact on your crew’s ability to collect nothing.
	We can offer you a smaller green bin for general household waste.
After the last bin was stolen I asked yourselves if I could not have one, given I have to take all my general waste and recycling to the Community Recycling Centre myself in my car. You told me no, it’s against the rules to not have a general waste bin. So I ended up having to stay in for a day, at the cost of 300 pounds of my time, to have a bin delivered that sat in my garden for 4 years, unused.

I fail to see what having a smaller green bin that is never used will do, unless you think it will free up space for recycling bins that will also never be used?

	Sharing recycling bins with a neighbour is also possible.

I have no access to my neighbour’s garden, nor them to mine. We share no communal space.
The last time my neighbours even pulled in my general waste bin your crew reported this to yourselves, and your response was a letter threatened them with legal action over this heinous crime. I will not ask them to take on the risk of any dealings with your waste department and crews after your reactions to their neighbourly assistance.