Stirling Council’s controversial monthly bin collections will be reviewed.
At a full council meeting last week a Tory motion calling for the four-weekly general waste and recycling uplifts to be looked at again was passed by 14 votes to seven.
The review is set to include the views of the public, the waste service’s workforce and trade unions.
A four-weekly, instead of fortnightly, grey and blue bin collection had been introduced in September 2021, but Conservative councillors had campaigned for its reversal during the election.
Six Labour, seven Conservative, eight SNP, one Green and one independent were elected in May and the Labour councillors formed a minority administration backed by the Conservatives.
Conservative group leader Neil Benny said last month that they would be “working to get our manifesto commitments through, not least on the issue of waste collection which was a major part of our campaign”.
He told last Thursday’s council meeting that the bin collection issue – “affecting every single household in Stirling” – had been the “number one thing” people in the street had been talking about during the campaign and two-weekly collections were “the best way to go forward.“
Click here for more news and sport from the Stirling area.
But he added he was “pragmatic” and pointed out that the Conservatives were not the biggest party (SNP) to work across the chamber on the future of Stirling’s waste collection service.
The previous SNP-led administration had failed to take people with them - and its “inability to consult with the community” had “eroded trust”. The review, he said, would give people the opportunity to have their say which they didn’t get when implemented.
But council leader, Labour’s Chris Kane, who had been part of the previous SNP-Labour administration, said the system was working fine and that he would “like to know what is it that the public are so passionate about”.
He told the meeting: “I think the frequency of the waste collection service is working. We’re in exactly the same position as last year. There are tough choices to make. I suspect we will have to make them again. I’m somewhat intrigued by a review. I’d like to know what is it that the public are so passionate about.
“I want to know what we can do differently. I think we are going to be in the same place.
“Why is the public where they are and why are we so out of kilter? There is something we need to get right here.”
Backing an SNP amendment - which included reducing waste volumes and an education programme to improve recycling – councillor Jim Thomson, environment and housing convener in the previous administration, said the review could be carried out in half a day.
The system was working, he said, but people did not understand it, adding: “We have got work to do on that. We’ve got to get better at explaining to people.”
And referring to a target of 70 percent of all household waste to be recycled by 2025 in the council’s strategic waste plan, he said: “Let’s move forward. Officers are going down a rabbit hole for something that doesn’t exist.”
The successful Conservative motion will see a ‘short-life’ working group appointed to look at the frequency of each waste collection stream, the garden waste charge, and overall costs, as well as high quality recycling.
The SNP amendment for a group to oversee the council’s strategic waste plan, review the collection of commercial waste and work with communities and businesses to reduce waste, as well as an education programme, fell by 13 votes to eight.
