Family bin prompts inspection

A FORRES resident is praising Moray Council for seeing sense about problems he had encountered with his green bin.

Simon Burns, who lives at Broomhall in Tytler Street, called the council’s re-cycling department last week after the collectors refused to empty it, stating it was larger than the average bin at 360 litres, rather than 240 litres, and therefore a health and safety risk.

Mr Burns said he was absolutely gobsmacked, after it was left during the fortnightly collection.

“We have a rather larger bin than the normal green bin,” he said, “but we have had it for eight years. It was here when we moved here. We’ve never had any problems before, so I couldn’t believe it, when they said they couldn’t empty it.”

Mr Burns contacted the environmental services department where he was told he was lucky the bin had been emptied for the past eight years, as it was larger than average and not a Moray Council bin, but if he required a larger than normal bin, someone could come out and do an assessment.

“We are a family of five and we use our big bin,” he said, “but we use our re-cycling bins too and have never had problems before, so I just couldn’t believe what they were telling me.”

After several emails and phone calls back and forth with the council over last week, an inspector called at his house on Monday morning, took one look at his bin and said it was clear that it was a council bin, she didn’t know what the problem was and re-assured Mr Burns it would be emptied, from now on.

“I asked what would happen if the collector wouldn’t move it and she said there wouldn’t be a problem,” he said. “I just think the whole thing was daft, but I’m glad it’s been sorted out.”

He said it was a shame that the time and effort of a council employee had been needed to decide if his bin was satisfactory or not.