A WOKINGHAM resident is frustrated with how the new recycling sacks are being collected, and has accused the council of ‘not thinking this through’.
Last week, David Stevenson took to Facebook with complaints that the new rubbish bags were getting blown away in the wind after being emptied.
Now, he is concerned residents will not be able to use the bags when winter comes.
“I put my bag out on Thursday morning, on the first week I got it, and the weather was relatively calm,” Mr Stevenson said. “I hadn’t noticed that the wind got up after it was emptied, and a kind neighbour saw it disappearing down the road.”
He said he was lucky his neighbour retrieved the bag for him, otherwise he may have lost it.
According to Wokingham Borough Council, the new recycling bags are weighted at the bottom to prevent them being blown away.
Mr Stevenson said he is unsure if they have been properly weighted and worries the sacks are not heavy enough to stay grounded.
“This week, I’ve put the bag in a black box and hope the refuse collectors will put it back there,” Mr Stevenson said. “But these bags need to be heavier – this is a practical problem.”
“I don’t think Wokingham Borough Council has thought this through properly.”
The resident has since questioned whether the recycling sacks will survive in colder weather, and is calling on the council to take action.
“[The council] either needs to educate refuse collectors to put the bags somewhere safe, or something needs to change,” he said. “I appreciate why we’ve got the bags, but I’m not sure they are the solution.
“I can’t see an obvious solution to this, short of giving us all wheelie bins.”
A spokesperson for Wokingham Borough Council said the change to waterproof recycling bags will increase recycling across the borough, and tackle the “wet paper problem”.
“The bags come with a 350g rubber pad at the bottom which should keep them in place after they have been emptied,” they said.
But they noted that in “extreme windy weather conditions,” the bags may be blown about.
“When the weather is like this, we have requested our collection crews to keep the bags in place in some way, such as with a food waste caddy,” the spokesperson explained.
“We remind residents to label their bags with their property number as soon as they get them.”
As of last week, more than half of the residents in Wokingham borough had received their new recycling sacks, with the rollout to continue this month.
The council hopes the new bags will help meet its target of 70% recycling by 2030.
