ONE REFUSE COMPANY has started fining customers who frequently contaminate their wheelie bins with inappropriate rubbish.
Greyhound has hired 25 new members of staff whose job it is to inspect bins to make sure the waste is properly segregated.
Those deemed to be frequent offenders will be slapped with an average fine of in and around €30 every time they neglect to dispose of their rubbish properly.
Households will be sent a warning letter stating that they have been improperly disposing of their rubbish. They will then be given around a four-week period to start using the service correctly. If not, they will then be sent a fine. The precise cost of the penalty will depend on exactly how much it costs to dispose of the contaminated waste.
According to Greyhound’s updated terms and conditions, if collectors spot that your bin has contaminated waste, they will then be within their rights to not collect the rubbish. Customers will then have to pay for “a separate service to be arranged at a cost of €30″.
If the contamination is identified after collection, “the customer may be charged a disposal/cleaning charge of up to €30″ in addition to usual charges.
Green and brown bins for recyclable and food waste respectively are the ones which people have the most problems with, according to Greyhound.
A spokesman for the company said: “This is the cost of disposing of the contaminated waste. It’s not about targeting people who make a one-off mistake, it’s about going after the repeat transgressors. But there’s a positive aspect to it as well. Once the household receives the warning letter, their behaviour changes very quickly.”
A survey conducted by the firm last week found that only 30% of brown bins are being presented for collection – down from 50% two years ago. Food and other waste that should be disposed of in brown bins is being found in black and green bins.
The firm’s managing director, John Brosnan, said: “We have introduced a fair usage policy to tackle the massive amount of inappropriate waste in green and black bins. The new policy has received an overwhelmingly positive response from customers. When letters are received from those who have contaminated their bins, brown bin usage immediately jumps to 70%”
In the last year, concrete bricks, large household electrical goods and dead animals have been discovered in green bins by collection crews.
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