BIN THERE, DUMPED THAT

Dozens of unopened defrosted ready-meals and other dry foodstuffs dumped in Bellevue last week have left locals irritated, bemused and disgusted.

Irritated – because they made an unnecessary mess in the street. Bemused – because they were dumped right next to a wheelie bin rather than inside it. Disgusted – because the packets were still within their use-by dates, at a time when more and more local families are being forced to use food banks.

No-one saw or heard the rubbish being dumped.

Since they didn’t know where the packets had come from or how they had been stored previously, the local residents who found them wisely decided not to open or pass them on. They did the obvious thing on Sunday – bin them.

Central and Leith Neighbourhood Partnership were then informed, and promised to alert Environmental Wardens in the neighbourhood to keep an eye out. (Not a Birdseye out.)

The incident set Spurtle thinking. How widespread and common a problem is fly-tipping in Broughton? A quick survey of friends and contacts brought immediate anecdotal accounts of:

• 
  multiple carry-out boxes stuffed into East Claremont Street wheelie-bins at night
• rubbish thrown down the railway embankments between Dryden Street and Terrace (right)
• piles of furniture and soft furnishings repeatedly left outside Pilrig Glebe
• regular fly-tipping in and around the Shrubhill gap-site
• chronic trade waste in Gibson Street
• anything from mattresses to bikes, televisions, wooden palettes, office chairs and stolen cars abandoned in Scotland Street Lane East. 

On the bright side, fly-tipping over the Scotland Street Tunnel parapet seems to have reduced markedly since the demise of Outlook and the Herald and Post.

Are you aware of any particular problems? Have things got better or worse since the Council began charging for special uplifts or introduced timed trade-waste collection on Leith Walk (Issues 227, 228)?

Send us your findings, and we’ll start compiling a map of local trouble-spots. Contact us by email at spurtle@hotmail.co.uk on Facebook Broughton Spurtle or Twitter @theSpurtle 

For official enquiries or reports of littering, fly-tipping and abandoned vehicles, contact your Neighbourhood Partnership. For further advice, visit the Council website here.

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@theSpurtle that's terrible, plus the cardboard could've been recycled to.

@theSpurtle Arthur street constant fly tipping of furniture, tv's etc by communal bins.

@sn78 Those communal bins have no shame.

 

Dear Editor

I was appalled to read about the thoughtless dumping of food beside a communal street wheelie bin in Bellevue. I can fully sympathise with the local residents as we have a similar recurring problem of fly tipping and abandoned refuse at the west end of Cumberland Street.

 

Apart from discarded black-plastic waste bags, in recent years we have had all manner of household furniture and fittings, carpets, quilts, duvets, kitchen tops, mirrors, electrical goods and even garden waste discarded by the wheelie bins and on the pavement. Most of the fly tipping is done after dark, often late at night, clearly by selfish thoughtless people who know full well it is wrong and anti-social. No doubt they feel that, once discarded the rubbish, is no longer their problem. However, it then becomes the problem of those living near the wheelie bins.

As the mornings get lighter earlier, the tedious problems of seagulls tearing open the bags looking for food will soon be with us again. I have regularly tidied up discarded rubbish from the pavement if only on health grounds. A very unpleasant job at times. On one occasion, the huge pile of rubbish left by the bins was photographed by some astonished overseas tourists! 

Our situation at west Cumberland Street is exacerbated by a lack of communal bin capacity.

 

At a meeting in the Cumberland Bar between concerned residents and the Council refuse officials in Spring 2012, it was agreed to locate four wheelie bins in each half of Cumberland Street to address the problem of littering caused by household waste left out on the pavement for collection. Eight wheelie bins were regarded by the refuse officials as sufficient for the number of households in Cumberland Street. However, once in position, the street bins were also used by residents from St Vincent’s Street, St Vincent’s Place, Circus Lane and beyond. On one memorable occasion, I was walking down India Street when a resident appeared carrying a carpet. He carried the carpet all the way down to Cumberland Street to dump it by the wheelie bin!  As there are wheelie bins in Dundas Street, there seems to be is less of a problem with the central Cumberland Street bins.

I raised the issue of  fly tipping and the inadequate capacity of the the west Cumberland Street wheelie bins with City officials in December 2012. I got no reply from a local councillor, but a community waste officer did reply saying that the ‘Modernising Waste Team is currently working on what form of containerisation would suit the remaining streets in the city centre’. 

That was over 16 months ago and still nothing has appeared to address this serious environmental issue not to mention the matter of civic pride in our wonderful city.

I feel sorry for the refuse service staff who do a good job in a high-density city centre – after all, it is a few selfish residents who are the problem. If I have one criticism, it is that the collection teams who empty the communal bins put aside any fly-tipped rubbish. There seems to be no facility, or volition, for them to inform the refuse department that bulky items have been fly-tipped and will require collection. It seems to me they rely entirely on the local residents ringing the department for a one-off collection.

How many prosecutions have there been for fly tipping? Many a time have I seen identifiable names and addresses on discarded rubbish. Having said, that I have also seen people remove bags from full wheelie bins and place them on the pavement so they can then dispose of their own rubbish.

I have attached a few random photos taken over the past 15 months or so which illustrate the problem. You could have had dozens more.

Regards

Dr Ian Shaw

Cumberland Street

 @theSpurtle We'll get the Task Force to clean up around bins, can resident get in touch direct so we can look at longer term solution? ^E 

@theSpurtle @CityCentreLeith @north_team perhaps you can take a look at the bins on Bellevue Place? pic.twitter.com/grLJan8P0D

Edinburgh Council third day in a row - fly tipped junk E Claremont St. Blind binmen?! @MalcolmChishol1 @theSpurtle pic.twitter.com/pdGSRwz0Fb

 

 

 

Malcolm Chisholm Msp ‏@MalcolmChishol1  4h

 

@speybaysoul @theSpurtle @LAHinds plus many bins in area not being emptied. I am sure Lesley Hinds will sort it out!

 

@beckytog @theSpurtle Morning, can you let us know where on Bellvue Place this is please and I will ge it sorted? Thanks. ^M

 

@CityCentreLeith @theSpurtle it's at the corner of bellevue road opposite the school. Thank you verymuch!

@beckytog @theSpurtle Morning, Thanks Rebecca, Ive asked for the bin & mess to be removed. ^M

 

@speybaysoul @MalcolmChishol1 @theSpurtle special uplift. Why do residents think it is okay to dump anything out on to the street? Reportef

 

@LAHinds @speybaysoul @theSpurtle Thanks residents certainly wrong to dump like that but still a problem of unemptied black bins in the area

 

The Left-Handed Tea Drinker says a cleaner Broughton starts with attitude changes close to home. See Breaking news (20.4.14).