Bulk refuse fee is too high for OAPs but too low for skip operators
Monday 22nd March 2010, 2:29PM GMT.
IMPOSING collection charges for bulk refuse could leave the elderly with less money to live on, it is claimed.
Skip firms welcomed the cost, but complained that with five items per collection, they could still not compete with the States scheme.
From 6 April general collections will cost £15. The service has for the past 15 years disposed for free of domestic items too big to fit in a car, such as beds, furniture, kitchen appliances and boilers.
Age Concern chairman Jan Kuttelwascher (pictured) said the fee would be significant for those with only their States pension.
‘Other charges will also come into effect. The cumulative effect could be, for some pensioners, quite substantial. Maybe the Social Security Department could pick up the tab for those in real need.’
Skipco MD Jeff Guilbert, who once said skip companies would go out of business because of the free service, said it was a step in the right direction, but did not go far enough.
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The states current bulk refuse scheme should remain FREE. Due to the increase in costs associated with disposing of items in the tip and now the £15 levey I am sure this will increase fly tipping. If any of these politicians live in the countryside of Guernsey I am sure they have already seen fly tipping increase. Now you are just encouraging persons to dump their rubbish elsewhere. A states environmental scheme has nothing to do with the skip companies business. Do you really think someone will pay a skip company to dispose of an old cooker or bed frame? The simple answer is no….Well done states of Guernsey for encoraging MORE fly tipping. If you want to see fly tipping just drive down the quiet country lanes and also ask the farmers what is happening on the island.
I can hear everyone once again slow clapping the states….Incidentally how many states members have a vested interested in a skip company!!
Yours Matthew
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John,
The states scheme has never been ‘free’. Its just that the funding for the transport element of the bulk refuse scheme will no longer be taken (in whatever shape or form) from all islanders but instead from those that actually use the bulk refuse scheme.
I don’t know if I have a warped view on things but this seems pretty fair to me.
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if you want us to recycle then it will be much more than £15….you do know it can cost up to £1200 a tonne to recycle batteries..i dont see how a small island can recycle everything we dump..
there will need to be another place to get rid of the stuff we cant recycle…i know..how about a waste to energy plant.
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i think its wrong as people who are on social an older people who have no money wont be able to afford that money an that means the will be more fly dumping as peple wont care anyone that is one thing at is keeping guernsey clean is the help as i know i use bulk refuse an it help me out as i wont be able to pay the 15 pounds as i have two children to feed
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