THE SALFORD BIG BLACK BIN PROBLEM? WHO IS TO BLAME?

It's January and so that can only mean one thing in the Salford Calendar, yes that's right - BINS.

It has become a kind of tradition across the Salford based social media groups that as soon as the tree is down and the last of the Christmas spirit has left the building - the people of this fine city of ours turn their focus on the state of the streets.

Our popular 27,000+ member strong SalfordOnline group on Facebook becomes a mecca for those who appose the illegal dispose and this year 'Bin Season' started even earlier than usual.

With streets strewn with remnants of torn open boxes and wrapping paper with the fragrant smell of rotting Brussels sprouts in the air, just whose fault is it?

Well let me first start by giving the council a bit of a free pass on this as after four sad years of studying the Bin and Flytipping phenomenon across Salford I concluded in the end that on the whole the local council really does its upmost to keep the streets clean.

In general if you report it then it will be removed eventually, sometimes more quickly than others if I have to be critical.

There are areas within Salford in which the problem is relatively mild BUT in stark contrast, some areas seem to suffer the blight all year-round. One particular area that captured my personal attention was my beloved former home turf of Weaste & Seedley which have had to say the least - a bit of an atrocious problem with dumping and fly tipping.

I was however happy to see that under former councillor Paul Wilson - things had started to be somewhat turned around.

Within a period of a year or so I observed areas in which there had been consistent dumping clean up their act, the reason for the dramatic change I attributed directly to Paul's hard work in being a proactive councillor, often reporting things quickly to ensure that they did not become a bigger problem for people later down the line. His methods had really started to make an impact and they seemed to be working well.

Sadly Paul was not re-elected in May and I can't help but notice that things have now started to sharply decline again.

Paul is not the only proactive councillor on patrol across Salford Streets, Boothstown & Ellenbrook councillor Bob Clarke (a regular on SalfordOnline) is always happy to try and help by using his influence as a councillor to get areas across Salford kept clean and tidy to great affect. He does so without fanfare or taking any credit and I have lost count of the amount of people he has helped.

So just why do we have this seemingly never ending problem? 

Well the simple conclusion I came up with after my rather sad four year sojourn into the cities muck an filth is this.

The real problem is not the council, nor is it lazy bin men, it lies within a minority of scruffy people who think the rules don't apply to them and are either too busy or just plain lazy to sort rubbish into the correct bins for disposal like the rest of us.

It really is as simple as that. Yes I would love to see people being more proactive in reporting rubbish but more often than not people will complain over it and then expect someone else to go to the trouble of dealing with it.

It really is a case of a minority causing the issues for the majority.

In one area of Weaste I regularly checked bin numbers and found that the same few prolific offenders were behind up to 90% of the problem, with one home in particular failing to take its bin in at all for over six  months solid, they would simply walk down to the bottom of the gated alleyway and drop a bag at the side of it as the bin which was by this point perpetually full with other peoples rubbish. If the bin was full when they got there then they would dump it on top and then at the side and then finally you would end up with a bin sat surrounded by an ever increasing mountain of waste.

At one point I sat in my car and watched the bin owner scurry down the alleyway in her slippers to throw another bag on top of the already huge pile which had accumulated, enough was enough and so I got out of my car to confront her and ask why she was dumping rubbish on the streets, her reply was "Why not? I pay council tax, whats it got to do with you?"

It had a lot to do with me and a lot to do with you too as it costs money to continually remove this dumped waste and that comes out of all of our pockets via council tax at a time when every penny counts for local services.

The solution for most of us is to recycle all we can, it is obviously the way forward for our society and the planet and in doing so it saves the council money that could be far better spent on other services, for those who can not be bothered to pull their weight and comply with the rules then as far as I am concerned the only real way to deal with this is via prosecutions with real consequences and heavy fines. The council needs to see a little reality and understand that signs and environmental bags just don't work, it really is a complete waste of money.

Oh and whilst I am in a bit of a rant, something really needs to be done about gated alleyways as they have become a mecca for dumping.

If the council are guilty of anything here it is that they could be doing more to prosecute those causing the problem, however it should be mentioned that they do prosecute and take some cases to court but more needs to be done to send a message that this will no longer be tolerated. It is an issue that affects us all, no one truly wants to live surrounded by filth and so if we want to see change then we need to be demanding that change happens. 

So who do we ultimately blame?

The Bin Men?

It is often those on the front line who 'cop' for most of the stick, usually the order is foremost the binmen who unfairly get blamed for not removing rubbish bags, seriously though would many of us want to have to pick up some of this rubbish?

The Councillors?

Not far behind the binmen in the firing line are local councillors who for the most part really do try to get things removed, admittedly some far more effectively than others.

The Council?

Third inline are most usually the Council, yes they are not perfect but for as much as I hate to admit it, when recycling is done properly, the three week collections do work, however in summer months I personally think the frequency of collections should be stepped up to two weeks so as to cut down on the obvious increase of flies and rats which are constantly reported on our Facebook groups. And Yes more could be done to help those genuinely struggling with black bins and large families etc but the Council does take circumstances into consideration and larger bins can be made available for those with a genuine need.

The Real Problem?

The reality though is the people who should be first in the queue to be recipients of our frustrations and anger should be those minority of people who are blighting our once beautiful city with their inability to comply to simple rules, shear laziness and complete contempt for the rest of society. If you want to point the finger of blame then we should be pointing it where is deserves to be. We can blame the council, blame the binmen and councillors and even the government all we like but the real truth is that this issue is caused simply by idiots who give not a single 'crap' about the 'crap' they leave behind.

If these people were working within the rules then the system would work, it clearly does for the majority.

Photo: SM (Please note all rubbish in the photos was removed thanks to the efforts of both Paul Wilson and Councillor Bob Clarke over the past year. These are just the tip of the iceberg.)