I rest my case about councils having to accept some responsibility for residents’ resorting to flytipping. And I believe, once you’ve read the following, you’ll see why… 

  

I’m one of the lucky ones, living in a borough that collects all of its residents’ bins, every week, rather than having the fortnightly and sometimes even gappier collections suffered by some other Brits. The collections cover – along with waste fit just for landfill - cardboard, paper, plastics, tins, glass bottles/jars and food. And, (something I found on the website five weeks back but don’t recall having been notified about separately)“clean foil scrunched into a ball no smaller than the size of a tennis ball”, clean foil trays and empty squeezy tubes. 

  

I was on the website as I had cardboard that wouldn’t fit into the bin, along with a bag of rags/textiles that I couldn’t make use of or pass on to someone else. I knew I could leave large pieces of cardboard next to my bin and that they’d be collected. I also knew clean rags/textiles needed to be left in a clear, sealed and labelled plastic bag but that collection was only fortnightly – I wanted to learn which week I should leave it outside. I was pleased to see that rags are also collected weekly now. 

  

As I said, that was five weeks ago. Neither the extra cardboard nor the bag of textiles were taken, so I filled out a ‘complaints’ form on the council’s website & received an apologetic email which assured me they’d be taken the following week. After that next collection, I emailed to thank the council for sticking to its word. It was only upon my return from a walk into town two days later, that I realised that the rag bag was still there, tucked between my bin and a boundary bush. I emailed the council again but as I’ve not received a response, I assumed I’d need to fill out another form. 

  

I re-attached the label that had disappeared and left the bag on the recycling bin the following week to ensure that it couldn’t be missed. I had to do the same the following week but this time kept an eye out for the recycling team and when everyone was preparing to move on I ran out and asked the man who’d been responsible for taking my bins why the rag bag hadn’t been collected and briefly explained what had been happening. His response was that the ‘cage’ for textiles is so small that there’s never any room in it. “We have loads of spare vans and I keep saying we should send one out to collect all the surplus,” he explained. “But they never listen!” 

  

I’m going to fill out another complaint form and see what happens. Watch this space…