Will no one take our rubbish?

RUBBISH IS accumulating on One Housing (OH) estates on the Isle of Dogs, as days pass without a bin collection. It’s got residents fuming – and the Island Network is trying to get the problem sorted out.

Last week’s failure to collect rubbish is not the first one on the Isle of Dogs, where the system has been breaking down on and off this year. The problem is repeated throughout the borough, where residents are finding temporary pauses in collections of household waste and recycling are seeing their streets covered with overflowing bins. It’s not only homes that are affected: schools across Tower Hamlets have also been plagued by missed collections leading to rubbish building up.

The collection service does seem to have improved since Tower Hamlets Council decided not to renew its contract with private company Veolia and took the refuse service back in-house – but then again, it could hardly have got much worse. Nonetheless, it is disappointing to see that the service is still under-performing. Refuse standing on housing estates encourages vermin such as rats and urban foxes into the area – hazards which local residents could do without.

A row of overflowing recycling bins in Byng Street, E14

Residents living on social housing estates face confusion about who is causing the problem. It seems to be the case that their social landlords are responsible for removing household waste and recycling – but the landlords generally buy into the service offered by Tower Hamlets Council. Should residents report missed collections to their landlord or to the Council?

Maium Miah Talukdar, Chair of the Island Network, has raised the matter with the Council – pointing out that residents are paying their Council Tax for an inadequate service. “Removing rubbish should be easy enough,” said Maium. “It’s a standard part of a landlord’s role. Our residents need to see an improvement.”

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