Councillors have been told that new recycling bags are “fit for purpose” – despite them being a third smaller than they should have been.
Lichfield District Council is investigating how it came to receive and distribute bags below the anticipated 81-litre capacity ones for card and paper it had expected.
But in an email to members of the local authority, the cabinet member for recycling, Cllr Ashley Yeates, has shared a frequently asked questions list to explain more about the issue.
He revealed that a total of 280,000 bags were purchased for Lichfield District Council and on behalf of four other local authorities.
But despite 81-litre capacity being ordered, some of those that have already been distributed have turned out to be smaller.
However, Cllr Yeates’ email said they were “fit for purpose”.
“The bags are being delivered in multiple consignments to the various waste services.
“The sizes and quality of the bags has been variable across the authorities. All have expressed concerns about sizes and some about quality.
“While some are smaller than ordered, they are fit for purpose.
“The smallest bags so far identified have a 57-litre capacity, which is the same as the bags currently in use in Newcastle-under-Lyme – their system has been operating successfully for several years.
“Additional capacity may need to be provided to residents in the future.”
Email from Cllr Ashley Yeates to members of Lichfield District Council
The email also confirms that delaying the new system of separating card and paper from the rest of the recycling would create an additional cost of around £35,000 per week.
He added that legal advice was being sought about the contract for the new bags, but admitted that testing could show they are actually made to the anticipated specification.
“The supplier has been made aware of our dissatisfaction.
“We have commenced distribution of the bags – to delay the roll-out of dual-stream collections would require the five authorities to continue co-mingled collection and disposal at an additional cost of £35,000 per week.
“Based on legal advice we advised the supplier in writing of our intention to use the bags to mitigate subsequent losses, but that we reserved the right to reject them as not meeting specification.
“The supplier believes that the supplied bags are within acceptable tolerance to specification. The next stage of the dispute will be to engage an independent testing body to attest to reasonable conformance to specification.
“At this stage we do not know the extent and severity of the problem – independent testing could conceivably advise that the bags are to specification.
“While we have engaged legal services throughout, the recourse we may have to the supplier remains unclear.”
Email from Cllr Ashley Yeates to members of Lichfield District Council
The email to members came after Cllr Derick Cross had told fellow councillors that whoever had been responsible should “resign or be sacked”.
“I cannot believe that nobody checked the order upon delivery or before distribution?
“Whoever was responsible for this project should resign or be sacked.”
Email from Cllr Derick Cross to members of Lichfield District Council
It would be interesting to know what the measures of success in Newcastle-under-Lyme actually were.
Was it the volumes recycled related to the volumes recycled using mixed recyclable systems like we had, or that they have been able to run with the bags for a number of years but volumes of recyclable materials went to landfill instead of recycling as the bags were too small or inconvenient? Or was it simply that their waste disposal costs were lower per household?
How can they be fit for purpose when they’re smaller than what was identified as being suitable??
Honestly, this council is completely and utterly inept. It’s a shame we don’t have local elections in a few days……I will not vote for this lot again – particularly after Mr Pullen has aligned himself with that awful man Fabricant.
Fit for purpose? Mine was full after just four days of use which isn’t going to fly when the collection is every other week (let alone trying to imagine what a heavy period like Christmas will be like). All my paper and card has gone in the black bin since and my motivation to give this a proper go is now fully exhausted, this is even before the first collection.
What a shambles, I hope for the sake of transparency that these bag specifications (and specifically what the supplier also agreed to, not an old proof of concept that was revised during negotiations) will be shared with the public in full so we can see just what is being tested as well as disputed. While I would hope this is not an exercise in filibustering for certain members of the council to save face (we tried our best to address criticism but it was the supplier or the independent reviewers that have prevented us doing so with their loopholes), I feel like this will now need to be a given if there is any desire to start trying to restore confidence around the management of this scheme and the use of council funds.
LDC could not organise a piss up in a brewery, time for the councilors and the paid staff to go
LDC is not fit for purpose!!! Especially the decision to alter recycling
Made in China.
I sincerely hope that the arbiters of the content of the “fit-for-purpose” blue bags and blue bins – The Waste Collectors – will receive extra pay and training for deciding whether or not LDC should fulfil it’s obligation to Council Tax payers, which is to collect refuse! “Residents’ blue bins will not be emptied if they contain paper or card and blue bags will not be emptied if they contain anything other than paper and card.”
So just to confirm, I can put my blue bag in the black bin?
Is this a new meaning for the phrase ‘fit for purpose’? It’s not one I’m familiar with. How these pathetically small bags are going to be able to cope with the amount of paper and card packaging we get these days is anyone’s guess. With the rise in online purchasing, this is an initiative doomed to failure. Do the people who dreamed this up live in the real world? An extra bin would have been more sensible, especially considering how waste collections are made. Surely the emptying of the bags will take a lot more time, not to mention the difficulties many people will experience in getting the bags to the front of their houses? And why isn’t there a drive to reduce packaging at source (we even had regulations about it in the 1980s which seem to have been forgotten)? Ill-conceived and poorly executed move.
Bang on Ben!! Ours too was filled in under a week, all remaining card and paper has had to go in the black bin. Total shambles. How did this lot get elected, it’s just a continuos series of poor judgements and decisions.
What a load of twaddle from Mr Yeates. Either the bags are the right size, as per the specification, or not. How difficult is the ‘testing’ he refers to. He can use my tape measure if he needs to?
In any other walk of life you would send them back, and check them next time. Come on guys, if you can’t do the job, move over….
What a joke , these bags are not fit for purpose! Same as the local government.
Another clueless statement, sick to death of people with no common sense thinking they know best.
What a duff idea these blue bags for paper/ card is! Anyone who receives a lot of paper mail and also orders online and has some large cardboard to dispose of will probably not recycle. It seems likely that a lot of people will no longer bother to recycle cardboard. Some purchases online mean large cardboard boxes to dispose of. I think that bags are a ridiculous idea – they might be suitable for some people. I anticipate filling a bag in no time, whereas the blue bin is absolutely up to the job and fit for purpose. I view this as a consumer/ council tax payer. Presumably the bags are considered to be a financial saving to the Council. Another issue is that whereas the blue bin lives outside and can be filled as and when – the bag will live indoors. Cluttering the home. I reckon that recycling of card and paper will be reduced as a result of this hairbrained new scheme. Blue bins will be half empty as a result. I doubt the blue bag will be up to the job. Lichfield District Council has done something not only silly, but a backwards step for recycling. The Council still has to empty the blue bins, so the scheme does not make much sense to me.
No one will own up they got it wrong. Always someone else. Eventually we will get to the end of the line. Dont know why some residences got bags others bins. To me the bags look as though they take up as much room as the bins and are less easy to manage.
Our black bin was more than double the normal volume today. Why? Because the paper bag was full to bursting within 4 days & the velcro seal is not good quality, so what will happen at Christmas? Landfill will immediately increase at extra cost to LDC. Did they calculate this in the proposal to alter the system? Farcical
To quote a “lady of the night” from a few years ago, “they would say that wouldn’t they”.
You’re right @John Pullen about the twaddle from Mr Yeates, so many contradictions in his statement and sadly as the lead council in the procurement LDC have stuffed it up for 4 other councils.
You’re right @John Pullen about the twaddle from Mr Yeates, there are so many contradictions in his statement and as the lead council in the procurement LDC have stuffed it up for 4 other councils.
Mumpsimus
It describes a person who cannot/will not change their opinion on something even when presented with hard evidence that proves them wrong.
I am beginning to think that being a mumpsimus is a requirement for public office.
My thanks to Susie Dent.
Who does the other councils have their bag contract with? It sounds as if they have a contract with LDC, to supply these bags.
LDC could be hit with compensation claims and also claims for compensation for the extra landfill from all of the other councils.
Like many others, my bag is full. My collection is next week. All of my card and paper will go into landfill.
Surely this is simply to verify – if the invoice from the suppliers states ’81-litre blue bags x 280,000′ and they’ve supplied 57-litre bags, then the supplier is in breach of contract and should rectify the issue.
Testing the capacity is also a simple mathematical equation – just grab a tape measure and borrow a sample of bags that have gone out to residents.
But instead, we’re watching the council play email tennis.
Cllr Ashley Yeates , can stick the bag where the sun doesn’t, shine, I live in block of 4 flat s a share 2 blue bin between us as no room for more bin’s, where the hell do these idiotic councilors expect us to keep the bags ? Any paperwork or card waste I have will go in black bin from now on, or perhaps thrown in the street, I will not entertain the idea of the crappy blue bag
I’ve just received our blue bag this morning, what a completely and utterly useless invention. Not fit for purpose.
The quality size and everything about it is appalling if they’ve paid £428k for these someone has made £425k profit.
I feel for the LDC staff that have to empty these things, bin collections will take for ever on the day and rubbish will be blowing around everywhere.
People in LDC should lose their job over this, utter incompetence.
Vote for me.
If you are one person saying they are fit for purpose.
And everyone else is saying you messed up and bags are full after just a few days.
Then maybe that one person is wrong, unfortunately they hold this view whilst representing everyone else who says they are wrong.
They are inept and should resign ASAP.
Conservative party have been safe in lichfield for a long time calling your voters idiots and saying we don’t know what we are talking about is not wise. Which at this point I feel pretty unsatisfied after a string of problems and you are just insulting us.
Very poor quality bags, certainly not waterproof. Ours has arrived today and the scheduled blue bin collection is tomorrow so this 75 year old has just had to dive in to the bin and separate out the recycling rubbish. The instructions on contents which came with the bag are also not consistent with the instructions on the website. In comparison with other recycling authorities Lichfield seems to be operating in Division 2 these days and not the Premier League but in the meantime the amount we have to pay in Council Tax continues to rise.
We’re rural so we’ve got a lovely new pink bin for our paper & card: first collection today and all went well. There are probably a lot of Lichfield ‘city’ folk who’d have been very happy with a pink bin instead of a blue bag. Perhaps LDC should have done a household survey to identify ‘customer’ needs before making assumptions and ordering blue bags – might have saved some money and trouble for a lot of people.
I seem to recall that there were howls of protest on this forum when this initiative was first proposed, but as usual LDC didn’t listen to the concerns raised. Such concerns have now been shown to be valid. The inevitable result from this will be a reduction in recycling as people will be forced to put packaging in the black bins, which rather defeats the object. An entirely predictable outcome. I am all in favour of recycling, but this is not the way to do it.
All this is nonsense, Lichfield provided open top small green bins many years ago before realising they did not work and so provided wheelie bins. Plus the new instructions given with the blue bag is confusing and contradictory leaving holes in where you can exactly place certain items.
Where do binmen put the bags after emptying them. They will ne all over the place blowing about in the middle of the road causing havoc for drivers. No one will know what bag belongs to what home
We live in Burton on Trent and have just received our Blue bag.
If it wasn’t for the amount of money that has so obviously been wasted by the council it would be laughable. The first wind and everything will be blowing around like confetti and also they aren’t waterproof so the collectors will reject it because it’s contaminated.
What a Mickey Mouse outfit our Councils are.
Looking at the instructions for what goes where, it seems we will all need barcode scanners to tell us where to put stuff. Are the recycling centres doing any sorting these days, or are we expected to do their job for them? Not that I’ve ever believed that everything we put for recycling is actually recycled and doesn’t end up in landfill. Come on LDC, just admit you screwed up and let’s have some common sense.
Let me tell you that the people in powers won’t be happy until they extract the maximum money from the tax payers pocket and you’re taking your own rubbish to the tip!
Is the roll out of the blue bags, in spite of them being not as ordered, a dead cat strategy to distract citizens of Lichfield from the fact that, in spite of our MP still making a fool of himself, the Conservative councillors are keeping to their vow of omertà on that subject?
Still awaiting a reply from any of my three councillors on the Conservative Association’s poor choice of candidate for Parliament.
Alice I totally agree, we are supposed to be having these blue bags, but can’t work out why houses just down the lane From us already have those pink bins ( LDC calling them purple 🤷) . Anyone know. We re in Colton
After one week I cannot physically get a tissue paper in my blue bag. I now have four options: place all remaining cardboard & paper in my already overcrowded shed; place all remaining cardboard in my conservatory; chuck all cardboard outside the front of my house so the wind will make my rubbish someone else’s problem or get Ol’ Sparky the garden incinerator out, put all cardboard in that and never use the blue “pizza delivery bag” again. Hmmm….. Pass the matches someone.
“The next stage of the dispute will be to engage an independent testing body to attest to reasonable conformance to specification.”
Because the councillor in charge cannot use a tape measure and basic maths?
If anyone wants my bag they can have it. I wont be doing paper or card recyling anymore until we get purple bins like some other households in this area have been given. Its all going up in smoke in my new garden incinerator.
I could almost fill a blue bin cardboard in 2 weeks!
Winge winge. Christ if your blue bag is full the Council will provide another for FREE just like your blue bin!!!!!!!!
I gave mine to dominos. They use identical ones for their pizzas.
Well I am not impressed tbh l don’t have room to have this bag in my house and I generally filled up my blue bin anyway with mostly cardboard/paper goods which means that my blue bin will be almost empty and this bag thing overflowing stupid idea reminds me of the green bins not happy at all sick of falling over the dam thing
Is it true that black bin refuse goes to incineration/energy production rather than landfill? If so, could be reason why council isn’t bothered extra black bin content providing lower cost paper/cardboard reduces overall waste disposal costs.