A film posted appears to show this could be the case
Since Ealing's new waste contractors, Enterprise, took over at the beginning of the month there have been fears that recycling is being mixed with general household waste and destined for landfill.
Ealing Council has previously claimed that green waste was being collected together and sorted out at the depot and has categorically denied that material for recycling goes to landfill.
A video posted on youtube appears to show this could be the case with an employee of Enterprise clearly shown throwing the contents of a white sack into the back of a general waste lorry. Ealing Council say that the lorry is only being used for 'dry waste' like plastics and paper and is resorted at the depot:
The poster claims that : 'It turns out that Enterprise don't actually have the recycling lorries available. Or any trained staff to carry it out. These guys are really making a mess of the street; throwing the (not always fully emptied) containers about to land anywhere.'
He continues: 'Presumably Ealing Council will have insisted on very strict performance criteria in their maintenance contract, with tough penalties if they're not met. Or to put it another way, if they don't do the job they don't get paid. So we trust their next 'reassuring' statement will at least be to confirm that Enterprise won't get paid for this mess?
'Mr. Mahfouz and Mr. Bell should cancel Enterprise plc's contact for non-performance. And heavily publicise the fact so those private equity revellers don't think they can keep ripping councils - and their Citizen Smiths - off.'
Cabinet Member for Environment, Bassam Mahfouz said today regarding this video evidence, 'Over the past two weeks we have explained that the contractor, Enterprise, has deployed a number of vehicles which are mixing the recyclable contents from green boxes and plastics containers in a bid to keep on top of the workload as a temporary measure alongside the vehicles being deployed to collect recyclables which separate at the kerbside. The mixed contents of these vehicles is being sent to a Materials Recycling Facility, whose job it is to separate the contents of such collections, which is the norm in many other local authorities. I would like to take this opportunity to reiterate that none of the contents of these vehicles is being sent to landfill.'
Julian Bell has post on Twitter, 'I can guarantee that recycling is NOT going to landfill. Please keep recycling.'
15th April 2012
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