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Is the policy on recycling just a load of old rubbish?
• THANK you for your Comment (Watch out for sticks and carrots in the recycling bin, September 24, see right) that Councillor Alexis Rowell and his cohort of bin officials are “at risk of being insensitive to the feelings of citizens who help to keep the Town Hall afloat with their council tax payments” and that “there should be a two-way relationship of respect and civility between... the Town Hall and those they serve”.
It is indeed a thorn in the side of many of us who pay our council tax and try to adhere to the plethora of new rules swirling around us that we are often treated badly.
I am still awaiting a promised call back from Camden in response to my eventual complaint a couple of weeks ago regarding the fact that my front garden is regularly despoiled by their rubbish collection.
If it were not enough that my tulips are Frisbee’d with the lids of my bins several times each spring and the corner of the garden often trampled on throughout the year even though there is a clear, wide, path all around it but finally, the week before last, the recycling bins were both dumped on the front garden, flattening many plants, and my dustbin was left rolling around on the pavement outside my gate no less than two houses away.
Last week, no doubt taking my complaint about the garden very seriously, the recycling bins were left for me to trip over on my very doorstep – better, but not acceptable.
Last year, our bins, although clearly visible, somehow missed their collections for several weeks running despite several calls to Camden and undertakings of removal within 48 hours.
Finally, I took a dozen or so sacks to the dump on behalf of myself and my neighbours upstairs so that the front of the house would not look bad on the day of their wedding (as mentioned to the council).
After a further 48 hours, I received a terse call to say the property had been inspected and no problem found.
I don’t spend my life complaining and have only attempted to bring things to Camden’s attention when it seems that things are going wrong on a regular basis.
Yet, on every occasion I have been treated with a mixture of indifference and disdain, calculated no doubt to discourage me and any others from trying such unfair tactics.
The suggestion in your articles and letters that Camden may be considering fining its householders for not recycling properly finally prompted me to write this letter, since I have personally, and on several occasions, observed the recycling and other ordinary rubbish being thrown into and crushed together by the same dump truck.
I understand from others who look into things more seriously that there may also be a question mark over the eventual fate of our recycling even if collected correctly.
I respectfully submit, therefore, that Camden should first look into and rectify its own policy and process on recycling before any attempt at all is made to penalise us.
ROBIN MACKAY MILLER
Constantine Road, NW3
I shall call the police
• SO it wasn’t the local loony or the identity thieves who have been going through my recycling box after all, but our own council – what on earth were they thinking?
A legal point. I think the materials placed in the box are my property until the council takes it away, and the box stands on my land.
A council officer coming onto my land and going through my property, without permission, is trespassing, and if I see one doing it I will call the police.
Could readers advise me on this, and can readers get photos of these snoopers at work, and will you print them?
Adam Leys
Willes Road, NW5
Who trusts them to sort it?
• THE recent letters you have received regarding recycling snooping clearly demonstrates the mistrust that the council have earned among Camden residents.
If the council actually wanted to know what households put in their recycling they would have simply asked the collectors who deal with it every day.
I only recycle paper and glass because I don’t trust the council to sort the items and I expect that a lot of it is shipped across the world to be dumped.
Can the council convince me and the many others like me that we are mistaken?
Eamon O’Sullivan
Burghley Road, NW5
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