A FERMANAGH councillor has blasted the number of bin cancellations over the last weeks and months as being “ridiculous”.
Cllr Sheamus Greene stated that the situation was “not a good look” for the Council and that each cancellation was bringing a number of hygiene issues for rate-paying residents.
With caddy-bins being much smaller than standard wheelie-bins, every two weeks, many people find it difficult to close the lid on them having accumulated so much food wastage.
Cancellations led to an overspill of rubbish which in turn brings its own problems of foul smells which in turn attract vermin.
“I think it’s ridiculous,” slammed Cllr Greene. “I have been raising this in the Council for a long time regarding the discrimination between urban and rural. By that I mean Enniskillen and Omagh being our two urban areas with everywhere else being treated as rural – including the likes of Lisnaskea and Irvinestown.
“The rural areas are only provided with a caddy-bin which is about the same size as a bucket. The urban areas have big brown bins which are the same size as your normal wheelie-bin.
“The caddy-bin just about does the job for the two-week cycle between collections but there are a lot of people who struggle to keep food wastage within that bin’s size.
“If a caddy-bin is not suitable for urban areas then why is it suitable for rural?
“There are people who haven’t had their caddy-bin collected for a number of weeks with some going two months without a collection.
“I brought this up in Council the other night under ‘any other business’ and have raised it with the Chief Executive that we need to get to the bottom of this and get it resolved.
“A lot of people – perhaps mistakenly – say that all we get for our rates is having our bins collected.
“But if we’re failing in that, it’s a pretty poor show from the Council if we can’t manage to do that.
“I’ve raised the matter and I’m waiting to get a report back for the causes of this problem and the solutions for it.
“Two elderly people have contacted me to say that bad hygiene leading to rodents feasting on the excess rubbish had become a problem.
“Not to mention the foul smell that had been building up as well. Suggestions saying that residents can take the rubbish themselves to the nearest recycling centre are not ideal.”
The Council themselves have suggested that residents deliver the rubbish themselves to a recycling issue but that is not a solution insists Cllr Greene.
He added: “First of all, not everyone has access to a car in order to do this and secondly, even if they did, they won’t be too keen on putting food waste rubbish bags into their car and stinking it out.
“Even if the large brown bins were made available to the rural areas, they would at least have some capacity to absorb any one-off cancellation of collections.
“But as it stands, this is not a good look for the Council.”
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