Almost everything to do with West Dunbartonshire Council’s handling of the Corona Virus from care homes to contracting it has been rubbish. Notice the number of deaths, the cover-ups and confusion. So, there is no surprise that the Council have managed to produce a set of confused rules for taking your rubbish to the recycling centres at Dalmoak on the Renton Road and Old Kilpatrick. Parkinson’s Law (Work expands to meet the time allocated to it) comes to mind when you look at the instructions for queuing up for entry to these depots. Eh? is the only response to this. Don’t be surprised if you find the rubbish being tipped at the gates of these depots by frustrated people having done the right thing for months only to be faced with this piece of bureaucratic bumbledom. But that’s what happens when you put the person in charge of Communications in charge of the Bins and Recycling department. Or the other way round. Progressive thinking required here. Open these depots 24/7 and supervise them until the demand goes back to normal hours. Ed.
Meanwhile grass that could have been cut, should have been cut, remains uncut.
Quite why essential grass cutting in open areas could have been carried out safely over recent months is an absolute mystery. It only takes one man to operate a mower. Sitting watching the grass grow thinking about all the overtime that will inevitably have to be be worked upon resumption of work after a three month suspension on pay may not be everyone’s idea of best practice.
Everywhere else has cut the grass as can be seen around the housing association estates, private estates, and open areas around commercial estates. Indeed, when on the A82 and you make the transition from West Dunbartonshire to Glasgow the first thing you notice is the grass cut verges.
Good old WDC first to down tools, last to pick them up. Mind you the benefit of long grass is that members of the council may be able to move about incognito in it hidden from sight. I mean how else do you explain their absence.
As to the reopening of the tips one can only anticipate chaos, absolute chaos. But again, method in the madness. Folks having patiently stored their recyclables for three months will be absolutely exasperated to travel to a recycling centre only to be turned away not realising that the Council were operating restricted waste disposal.
Shut the recycling centres for three months, and then reopening them on restricted hours. You must be mad Ed to suggest that the council should maybe operate them 24/7 until demand reduces.
I wonder if anyone in the council has done the maths. Shut the tips for three months. Let three months of waste build up. Then open the tips on a Monday to Saturday basis ( and not a Monday to Sunday basis) restrict the hours to 9.00 am to 5.45 pm, and then reduce accessibility to fifty percent through alternate day access.
How long do you think it will take to clear the backlog. Will it get cleared or will it get bigger. ( clue here is if you have three months stored waste, and you then more than half the capacity whilst the community continues to produce waste – do the thinkers in WDC think the backlog will ever go down !! )
No doubt being faced with this nonsense there will be some who having patiently stored their waste will resort to disposal by alternative means. Moreover one cannot but help think that council workers, doing a stalwart job, will inevitably meet with the angst of folks being turned away after having stored their waste for months.
Message to the CEO on circa £145,000 a year plus benefits. Can you do the waste input – output sum and ask your finest brains to explain how this is going to work. C’mon Ms Whyte or the Great Leader in hiding, spit it out, will this hare brained scheme work, or should you go down the Ed’s suggestion of opening 24/7 to get the backlog down.
Never mind the traffic congestion that will occur as those who can’t get into the re-cycling centres stop all through traffic.
Just think of the traffic congestion on the Renton Road when all the registration numbers are being checked.
Absolutely spot on David. Turning off the Renton Road the c class road that accesses the Dalmoak facility can handle about three or four queuing cars at a time whilst the facility itself it can handle about three to four cars unloading.
The upper area for bigger waste can handle another couple of cars. Quite where the morons in the Council think cars can queue and wait patiently as the advertise isn’t, as you observe, David difficult to imagine. All along the Renton Road.
A safety nightmare. An accident waiting to happen. You bet. Not that the council masterminds who put the plan into place to restrict opening hours in an already unsuitable area would know. But just wait till there is an accident and then it’ll be all squeals all round of why didn’t we open longer hours to reduce the congestion and deal with the backlog. But hey, we pay senior officers big money for this nonsense.
Not as much though that was was pumped into the private Greenlght company before it went bankrupt. But that another story for another day.
Maybe however one of the local councillors would like to comment on the health and safety aspects of how this backlog is going to be dealt with. Or will they, for the the most part, just keep hiding in the long grass, keeping their mouth shut.