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FRIEND or foe? The great bin debate just rolls on and on
FRIEND or foe? The great bin debate just rolls on and on

How many council workers does it take to empty a bin?

Vic Barlow
11/ 7/2006

IN THE digitised, SIM-carded world of texts and call centres there was always something reassuring about phoning Macclesfield Town Hall.

Most of the staff have been there for years and know what they are talking about.

When unavailable, you left a message and they called back. It may have been old-fashioned but it worked.

Now, in true councillor fashion, decisions have been made to cock-up up the entire system.

Mrs B phoned the town hall last week with a simple query about the collection of waste. After pressing button two and hanging on she spoke to a very nice young man who hadn't a clue. An hour later a young lady called and asked Mrs B to explain the problem. This took another 20 minutes before she was transferred to another gentleman who said our refuse would be collected the following day.

Two days later when there had been no collection Mrs B called to ask why. She was passed to another representative who said the refuse lorry had broken down. 'Nonsense!' said the next lady who called back to say the truck would be with us on Saturday.

Totally confused Mrs B delegated the job to me and when the rubbish remained uncollected on Monday I called the town hall. "Aha" said an eager young chap. "Leave it in my hands from now on you will deal only with me." An hour later his boss called and asked me to explain the problem.

"How do you want me to recite it?" I asked. "I can start at the end and do it backwards or work from the middle out, I can chant it in Latin if it will help."

"I can see how frustrated you are and I fully understand. Leave it with me and I will deal with it personally."

Twenty minutes later a pleasant young lady called and guess what? She asked me to explain the problem.

As of today our bins remain uncollected and no matter how charming, I cannot possibly talk to any more MBC representatives or I will truly lose my sanity.


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Most recent 1 of 1 user comments

   Thursday is the day this week when the black bins, cardboard and paper for recycling sacks get emptied by the MBC collectors. To make things easy for me and them I have marked everything that contains refuse with my house number & street name in numbers and wrote it in letters as suggested on their leaflets. Today I took it all to the bottom of the drive to wait for collection as told by MBC in detail on their extensive literature which I put into the recycling sacks too. I keep the sacks for paper and cardboard inside my home, but a lot of people keep theirs either in their bins or outside, then separate it all on collection day. The collection men came round being very efficient and collecting multiple cardboard sacks at a time throwing them into the lorry and then redistributing the sacks all messed up to the different addresses.The sack I received smelled like a dump, covered in grass cuttings & shredded to pieces, unlike the original sack I myself had kept in good order, knowing I would have to reuse it. Upon receiving this smelly substitute sack I threw it directly into a black plastic bag which was going into my black bin. I then phoned the council to ask what I should do now and was told to go to the town hall and get a few more plastic cardboard recycling sacks. I have to admit I did sit and wonder why we were bothering recycling paper and cardboard if we were going to end up with black bins full of plastic recycling sacks, lets face it no-one wants other peoples rubbish, germs or smells in their house. So what might seem to be a time saving operation will turn out to be a costly one Potentially rubbish left in the street and a mass of unwanted half used recycling plastic bags. It would be far cheaper, more productive and greener to return right sacks and bins to their original places.
Alexis Jackson, Macclesfield
24/08/2006 at 13:45
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