Rubbish

The disposal of household waste in the town became the responsibility of Bourne Urban District Council when it was formed in April 1899 but a regularised scheme for the collection of domestic rubbish did not begin until 1911. This consisted of a horse and cart with a bell attached to the cart to alert home owners that it was in the vicinity and the dustman, as he was known, was paid one shilling an hour for his services. The various parts of the town were covered in four days of each week and the rubbish collected was taken to the brick pits off West Road for disposal.

By 1930, weekly door-to-door collections were introduced with each household using a galvanised bin that was left within easy reach of the dustmen when they made their call. The rubbish was then carted to a central dump, now known as landfill sites, and buried and the system has continued since, although with slight variations.

The urban district council ceased to function under the re-organisation of local government in 1974 and although a parish or town council was formed, most of Bourne's affairs, including rubbish collections, came under the control of South Kesteven District Council based at Grantham, a situation that continues until the present day. Dustbins were phased out in 1979 when black plastic bags were introduced. Bourne was the first town in South Kesteven to get them because their distribution came at a time when the district council was trying to cut costs although the £10,000 required to provide sufficient bags each week for a year had already been included in the budget. The scheme was successful, despite misgivings from the trade unions that it might involve redundancies, and the men welcomed the bags because they were easier to handle and far more hygienic than emptying the same bins each week. The system remains in force but instead of refuse collectors leaving new bags when they collect the weekly rubbish, a supply of 52 bags is delivered to each house annually although householders may use more of their own for additional refuse.

Refuse collections underway in Stephenson Way using the regulation black plastic sacks and green bags for garden rubbish.

Weekly door to door collections are still made but the service was privatised in 1983 and is now carried out by the contractors, Onyx U K Ltd., employed by the district council and instead of dustbins, householders are issued with black plastic bags in which to deposit their rubbish on a like for like basis up to a maximum of five per house, although garden waste is not allowed to be put into them and must be disposed of in special prepaid green bags that can be bought from the council offices at the Town Hall for 55p each. The cost of the service for the South Kesteven area prior to privatisation was £867,000 per year and although this had risen to £1.4 million by 2001, the district council considers this good value for money when taking into account inflation and an increase in property numbers over that period. The cost averages £25 per property per year, each of which produces approximately 830 kilograms of waste.

During the past 100 years, the amount of rubbish generated by the average home has increased dramatically with the arrival of the consumer society but the refuse collection service has not kept pace with this development. Consequently, fly tipping has become a problem, especially in rural areas, while litter and overflowing rubbish bins are a common sight in the streets, especially at weekends, a situation exacerbated by the proliferation of fast food outlets. 

The dropping of litter, whether carelessly or deliberately, is not only a social crime because it impinges on the freedoms of those who do care for our environment, but is also a breach of the law. The Litter Act of 1983 which was designed to protect our public places has proved to be unenforceable and so prosecutions are rare while the Refuse Disposal (Amenity) Act of 1978 which makes it illegal for any item to be abandoned in the open air appears to be equally inoperable. Fly tipping is also prohibited under the Environmental Protection Act of 1990 but only one case has been brought before the magistrates in Bourne since this legislation was introduced. (See box below).

An unwanted divan was dumped at the roadside in Meadow Drove, Bourne, in April 2001 (above left) while kitchen fittings and equipment were left beside a field entrance on the edge of woodland at Essendine the previous year (above right). These are examples of widespread fly tipping which has continued even after the opening of the new seven day a week waste facility in Bourne and this refrigerator was dumped in the rubbish-strewn lay-by alongside the A6121 at Toft, three miles south west of the town, in March 2003 (right).

We therefore have a situation in which larger items such as refrigerators, ovens, beds and even furniture, are often dumped in the countryside because the local council refuses to take them away without charging a fee which many people are reluctant to pay and so unwanted items are often left in isolated spots under cover of darkness. 

An affluent society and the popularity of consumer packaging added to the problem as the years went by and local councils decided that additional refuse disposal facilities were needed in addition to the weekly collections, otherwise the dustmen, or refuse collectors as they are now called, would be unable to cope. On 22nd May 1976, South Kesteven District Council agreed to site a skip in the council depot at Lound, two miles south west of the town, for Saturday morning collections between 9 a m and noon. The facility was requested by Bourne Town Council because of the increasing amount of rubbish being generated in the town and the district council promised: "If enough people use it, we will provide one at regular intervals."

This proved to be the case and the following December, the location was moved to the old cattle market site near the town centre with a fortnightly collection but this proved to be unpopular. In 1981, Messrs Lyall and Company, the auctioneers who administered the market, complained that there had been problems with people dumping rubbish there at all times and not merely when the skip was present on a Saturday morning and this had been causing "considerable wear and tear" to the site and insisted that it be moved elsewhere. Astonishingly, the skip was then moved to the small car park behind Wake House but this too brought complaints, this time from the town council who said that it was too close to the Register Office where weddings were held, especially on Saturdays, that the dust was detrimental to nearby residents in Burghley Street and that valuable car parking spaces were being lost. The new arrangement therefore did not last and within six weeks, the fortnightly refuse skip was back at the cattle market site after the auctioneers had been temporarily appeased.

But the arrangement enjoyed only a temporary reprieve and in September 1986, town councillors received further complaints that a health hazard was being caused because of the old problem of people were dumping waste before the lorries had arrived and one member, Councillor Norman Thwaites, had the vision to suggest that a skip should be sited there permanently instead of Saturday mornings only. "The rubbish would then be in a proper container in readiness for collection", he said. This did not materialise and as the cattle market site was about to be redeveloped, the facility switched to the car park outside the Rainbow supermarket in Manning Road under the jurisdiction of Lincolnshire County Council and a weekly collection was instituted. In the ensuing 15 years, the amount of rubbish disposed of in visiting refuse vehicles between 8.30 a m and 11.30 a m on a Saturday morning became the highest of any other similar site in the county.

The facility became so well-used that it eventually resulted in two hours of chaos every Saturday morning. Queues had usually formed by 8 a m, half an hour before the trucks had arrived, and from then on it was a continual push and shove to dispose of waste that should by rights have been collected from the doorsteps. Men and women, many of them old age pensioners, struggled under the weight of heavy plastic bags and boxes as they were forced to stand in line for five and ten minutes at a time until they could reach the waiting refuse vehicles to dump their garbage. Sometimes they had to make three and four journeys from their cars to the trucks to dispose of their loads and there were frequent quarrels and bickering. 

During this time, none of the local authorities thought it worthwhile establishing a permanent waste recycling centre. But the situation changed dramatically when the management of the Rainbow store served notice that the car park would not be available after 20th October 2000. For several months, the management had been alarmed at the inconsiderate and even dangerous driving and parking by some visitors and the dumping of rubbish before the mobile skips arrived but despite previous warnings that the facility would be ended, Lincolnshire County Council did nothing to find an alternative site.

Newspaper and bottle banks in the Rainbow car park are frequently full to overflowing and so an eyesore is created by impatient home owners.

When the final notice came, the council made an abortive attempt to buy a three acre site in South Fen for a permanent waste recycling centre and when the car park was finally closed to them, they moved the venue to the car park adjoining the leisure centre in Queen's Road, promising that a permanent site would be found by the end of the financial year in April 2002, which is 27 years after the problem was first identified.

A new centre in Pinfold Lane, run by private contractors, eventually opened on 27th April 2002, but only on Saturdays and Sundays between 8 a m and 4 p m, although a seven-day operation began the following September when the mobile skip system was finally phased out.

The waste recycling centre

Recycling has begun to play an important part in the disposal of waste but far less importance is placed on it in Britain at the moment than in many other countries such as Germany and the United States where it forms an integral part of the weekly rubbish collection. In Bourne, for instance, the only recycling available is at commercial bottle and paper banks sited at three of the town's car parks but they are not emptied as frequently as they should be and so they are often too full for further deposits of glass and newspaper that are either dumped in public places or thrown away with the usual weekly rubbish.

Councillor Mrs Linda Neal, leader of SKDC, said: "Every household produces on average one tonne of domestic waste each year and the amount is increasing.  At present, only 6% of domestic waste is recycled but it is possible to recycle half the contents of a household's refuse. That is what we have got to encourage people to do and educate them how to do it." The scheme began with collections on February 3rd when 25 tonnes was collected for recycling in the first week alone but this soon increased to more than 50 tonnes.

As a result, new measures to increase efficiency in waste recycling were introduced by South Kesteven District Council as a result of government instructions in January 2003. The scheme, costing £250,000 in a full year, was intended to persuade home owners to recycle such commodities as cans and tins, plastic bottles, paper and cardboard, textiles and shoes. 

Large green plastic containers were delivered to 19,500 homes in the area, including Bourne, together with an instruction leaflet and a calendar giving fortnightly collection dates and a list of items that should and should not be included. Among the banned items were waxed milk and other cartons, egg boxes, ice cream tubs, polystyrene food trays, broken toys, plant pots, cling film and aluminium foil, aerosols, paint tins and engine oil containers, knives and hypodermic needles.

Similar bins made of blue plastic were later introduced for bottles and glass with collections on different dates but these were phased out in September 2005 after only 18 months on the grounds that they were uneconomic. Garry Knighton, head of waste and contract services, said in leaflet to homeowners: “The council has made every effort to make the scheme a success but there have been a number of factors which have resulted in it failing, including the frequency of the collections and the limited materials collected.”

The waste recycling wagon

However, a complete appraisal of the rubbish collection and waste recycling system was carried out during 2005 and it was decided that the green containers and the black plastic bags would go and be replaced by two wheelie bins, one of normal household waste and the other for recycled materials. The council claimed that the twin bin system was being introduced in order to meet tough new recycling targets set by the government and the decision will eventually mean alternate weekly collections to be phased in starting from September 2006 but it will take until June 2007 to complete the process.

Over 2,000 people responded to a questionnaire in the council's monthly newsletter in which nearly 73% preferred a wheeled bin for refuse collection and just under 70% said they would prefer a wheeled bin for recycling collection too. Newspaper surveys also showed a majority in favour of wheelie bins. Garry Knighton said: “The overwhelming majority of people want wheeled bins but it is also clear that there are areas where wheeled bins would be unsuitable. It has always been a recognised factor that some properties would be exempt from this collection method.”
 

REVISED JANUARY 2006

See also     The importance of waste recycling by Linda Neal

Vandalism, litter and graffiti     Waste paper recycling during World War Two

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