Bins v sacks: Why Edinburgh New Town's waste wars won't quit

The Herald Scotland

3 days ago

Jo Mowat, a city centre councillor since 2007, but then just a regular resident, recalls fierce opposition from the start. 'We had a bit of a stooshie when the original bins were introduced,' she said, 'but the problem with the black sacks was you'd put them out the night before or in the morning and the gulls and the foxes would get to them and there was waste strewn all over the street.'
It wasn't until after she entered the City Chambers that the council pressed ahead with a phased overhaul of the New Town's waste management system.
In a bid to appease locals horrified at the prospect of large black refuse containers blighting the entirety of their cobbled Georgian enclave, it opted to introduce communal bins on some streets, and 'gull-proof sacks' - stored within properties and placed out only on collection days - on others.
This was a compromise that largely kept residents happy. 'There's a slight mish mash of gull-proof sacks and bins now and the reason for that is at that point with the neighborhood manager we literally consulted street-by-street,' Mowat explained.'And people have got used to bins.'
Eventually, heads cooled and the matter was put to bed. That was, until 2021 when another waste management shake-up was announced.
Edinburgh Council launched its 'communal bin review' aiming to boost recycling rates among residents living in flats by introducing 'bin hubs' - groups of on-street bins providing separate containers for household waste, mixed recycling, glass, and food waste - to replace kerbside collections.
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Across the city, the roll-out of bin hubs has progressed since, sometimes met with complaints about odours, and issues with noise from glass deposits. However, according to the council the scheme has led to an increase in the amount of recycling collected and fewer reports of overflowing bins.
With work to install 55 bin hubs in the Old Town set to begin later this year, the New Town will be the final phase of the project - if councillors decide to pull the trigger at the transport committee on Thursday.
It has taken a long four years to reach this point. First brought to councillors in 2021, the plan - much like proposals two decades earlier - encountered significant pushback over its potential impact on the character of the neighbourhood.
When first mooted, the New Town and Broughton Community Council warned bin hubs were 'set to wreck the character' of the area,' describing them as 'ugly' and 'intrusive'.
Having groups of four bins as opposed to individual containers scattered individually along streets, the community council said, would 'permanently damage' the World Heritage Site, attract 'fly-tipping and encourage poor recycling habits' and 'take up scarce parking spaces'.
Historic Environment Scotland also cried foul at the idea to site bin hubs 'on streets currently without any visible waste collection,' while Edinburgh World Heritage warned of a 'threat to the visual integrity of the New Town'.
With the momentum of heritage groups behind them, various local street associations mounted a campaign against the plans and successfully halted the roll-out as the council agreed to trial green sacks for mixed recycling for the roughly 2,300 properties already using the black gull-proof sack service.
'The reason they went for gull-proof sacks was because they were getting a very well organised and well-funded campaign by a group of residents. Which they eventually gave in to and agreed,' Peter Williamson, current chair of NTBCC said.
'You could say that was because they were under so much pressure or because they were trying to be positive - maybe a bit of a mix - but nonetheless it was a campaign that led to the trial of gull-proof sacks which generally have been seen as successful in the areas they've been trialled. Therefore there was an expectation that when they went for the full roll-out other streets would sign up for a gull-proof sack.'
Launched in late 2022 - initially for 1,000 flats across nine streets but since extended - NTBCC said its own monitoring of individual streets showed a '250% increase in the volume of dry mixed recycling that is being collected,' while the council reported that the pilot saw an 'improvement in littering'.
But it wasn't always plain sailing. 'For gull-proof sacks, there were a lot of people who didn't have a scooby what they really involved,' Mr Williamson said. 'The bin bags are quite complicated in the way they work; people didn't understand them.
Gull-proof sacks in the New Town (Image: Newsquest) 'All along for over 18 months now we've been saying and others have been saying [to the council], have proper engagement with residents - which probably means organising, through residents' associations, helped by the community council, an offer of a meeting so you're not doing a sort of hand-off, drop a letter in and so on.'
It wasn't until the council agreed in November 2023 to extend the gull-proof sack service to a further 2,700 properties across 45 streets that the fightback truly gathered momentum.
A counter-campaign, 'Say No To Gull Proof Sacks' was swiftly mobilised, arguing it was unreasonable to expect residents to store a week's worth of waste in and around their homes. 'It is unhygienic,' their website said, 'think of the smell! [...] we all know rubbish can leak and produce ghastly bin juice.'
But the rebellion wasn't just to do with bins. Mr Williamson suspects there was 'a bit of class war going on'.
He said: 'There was a bit of unnecessary tension that had to do with other things than how refuse got picked up, to be honest.
'A few people said to me 'they live in the big houses, they were able to fundraise quite a lot.'
Through democracy, tensions can be quelled.
And so, earlier this year the council launched a consultation in an attempt to settle the matter once and for all.
In response, it has rowed back on its plans to impose gull-proof sacks on thousands more New Towners, proposing bin hubs instead.
And everyone lived happily ever after. Yeah, right.
A report to this week's transport committee seeks final approval from councillors for around 5,600 properties to switch from existing communal bins to bin hubs and 2,150 to keep the gull-proof sack service. Only 86 properties, on Nelson Street, will now switch from bins to sacks, with the opposite change—switching from sacks to bins—planned for 160 flats on Lennox Street and Eglinton Crescent.
The council said most consultation responses 'show that residents prefer to keep their existing service, rather than change service'.
It said: 'In 77 streets, the final recommended service is supported by consultation responses. In 59 streets, responses have either been very low or non-existent meaning it is not possible to identify a clear preference. In 13 streets, the responses are mixed and do not provide a clear preference.'
However, it's now claimed the council didn't make clear to residents the options being presented to them.
'The thing was so badly communicated that a lot of people thought that they were just going to carry on with their communal bins,' Mr Williamson said. 'They effectively said 'you'll just retain your same service'. But it's not the same service because they're in hubs now, they're not individual or two bins together.
'When you were filling in the questionnaire the council sent out, they didn't say the option is communal bin hubs, they just said it's communal bins. So people think: 'That's what we've got, I'll tick the box'.
The council's bin hub roll-out has been underway since 2021 (Image: Edinburgh Council) 'I think there is a fair amount of concern. A lot of people I've spoken to don't want [bin hubs].
'The consultation was conducted, nobody was allowed to say we don't want them - there was no alternative on offer.'
He also said that the 1,669 responses to the consultation were too few to justify proceeding.
'If you add in the fact people didn't necessarily know what they were ticking a box for,' he said, 'it is dishonest.
'I have told [the council] umpteen times that you can't conduct a survey in this way and then conclude you're working off the views of residents.
'Our message is that the whole consultation for more streets is just not valid, it's just not legitimate."
Councillor Mowat was similarly concerned people had been misled. 'Lots of people said 'actually we don't want this' but they didn't really know what the alternatives were.
'I think people thought 'you can change or it's the status quo' and people thought 'I'm quite happy with a couple of communal bins' and they've come back and said 'it's going to be bin hubs'.
'What they don't know is what the bin hub is going to look like, where it's going to be, how much parking they're going to lose. In some ways officers didn't anticipate.
'I think I would be supportive of a pause and going back, saying 'this is actually what the alternative looks like - how do you feel about that?'
Mowat is supportive of the council 'inviting people to meetings' to hear their opinions rather than running an online questionnaire. 'That's how we used to do it in the olden days,' she said.
'Because one of the problems we have is the recycling bins we have get contaminated on the street - So I've always thought there's an argument for this mixed economy of on-street residual waste bins and then people take responsibility for their recycling [with gull-proof sacks].
'They'll recycle more if you give them space to do it, that's where the green gull-proof sacks come in. I would really like that to be presented as an option.
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'The trouble is it has gone on for so long that it may get quite heated. You have to manage expectations [...] I'm not sure having got to this stage now we haven't exacerbated the situation.'
In a statement, transport and environment convener Councillor Stephen Jenkinson said the consultation responses 'have all helped shape the final recommendations which, as well as improving the service, intend to address the current misuse of communal bins'.
In a briefing with journalists ahead of June's transport committee, he admitted things could have been made clearer during the engagement process. 'When we're talking about retaining the current service,' he said, 'their expectation is it's exactly the same as the service currently.'
Jenkinson acknowledged that telling residents they would 'retain' their service was 'not strictly true'. 'We've not really been clear enough as to that retaining a service that's changing is different from changing a service', he said.
'But ultimately, it's bin hubs or gull proof sacks.'
He stressed refuse collection was a 'statutory service of this local authority'.
'We have to pick up people's waste and have to do it as efficiently as possible,' he continued. 'I'm also a realist, not everybody is going to be happy about this
'We've got to take the city forward.
'Is everybody going to be doing backward flips through burning hoops of fire around the rollout of bin hubs in the New Town? No, but are we developing a service that's fit for the future? I believe we are.'