What a load of rubbish!

Let’s face it, it’s everywhere you look in one form or another and sends out negative signals generally, encouraging disrespect of the street by its’ users and being abysmally unpleasant for everyone who lives here. No, everyone, full stop, visitors, too.

But how does it all get there? Who is responsible? The residents? The streets’ users? Non-residents dumping their rubbish here? The commercial premises from Ashley Road and  the ‘Shady Grove’ in particular? Bristol City Council’s collection and recycling service?

The truth is that it is due to a complex set of inter-related reasons, each in contributing in varying degrees to the whole, which is why just changing one element won’t work. They all need to be addressed holistically if there is to be a sustainable solution.

Not in any order of priority, let’s take a brief look at the causes to understand the problem for what it is. Identifying each cause is essential in order to visualise viable solutions. One thing is for certain, this mess needs clearing up and quickly.

We need ‘designer success’ not ‘designer failure’

The imposition of ‘global’ collection and recycling parameters in Bristol was always initially flawed and certainly not based upon the actual mathematics for each type of situation. In making further reactionary changes subsequently to the frequency of collection, apparently repeating not calculating whether bin capacity was sufficient in relation to the volume of rubbish involved, the problem here has spiralled out of control. Allied to over-estimating the adoption of recycling procedures by sufficient residents so that not enough has been recycled, the whole collections model has thus failed spectacularly here.

Pavements are for people

Asides from the problems of the rubbish in itself, just for the unsightly and unhealthy morass of filth that it is, it takes up far too much of the pavement space, as do parked cars, with the result that pavements are generally simply unnavigable by pedestrians who are forced to walk up the middle of the road into oncoming traffic.

Collections & recycling

Well, nobody could argue that BCC are not responsible for the adequate provision of both of these essential services. Indeed, Government targets have to be met for for several environmental indicators across the country. But, whilst BCC is responsible for providing the services in place, clearly they are not working in Drummond Road or Gwyn Street for that matter.

BCC will, understandably, argue that the present scheme requires the full cooperation of residents especially in relation to recycling which, if done correctly, should considerably reduce the volume of general rubbish and that is a fairly compelling argument because many residents simply do not recycle at all, let alone correctly. To be fair, it is usually those who don’t recycle who tend to be the worst offenders when, their wheelie bins overflowing, they resort to the use of plastic bin bags and prefer dumping them in one of three heavily abused locations instead of outside their own homes.

Catch 22

Frustratingly, the double whammy is that nobody wants people to keep rubbish outside their homes on the pavements unless in a proper receptacle at all. But, even if people did keep the excess rubbish in bags in their rear gardens until collection day, they would not be removed anyway because that is the current policy. Catch 22.

On the other hand, it could be argued that BCC has wildly miscalculated the capacity of the present scheme to deliver a safe and clean street environment here with bins that are the wrong size with the wrong frequency of collection and that take up too much space on the pavements anyway, whatever size they are. These streets were never designed to accommodate the sheer number of bins and cars both competing for space on the pavements in direct conflict with the interests and rights of pedestrians.

Ineffective enforcement

Further, enforcement of the scheme’s dependencies is extremely difficult in practice and there is much evidence of repeat rubbish dumping offences by some less than socially minded individuals, despite official warnings having been given them by Street Scene and even, simultaneously by Social Landlords such as Places for People who own roughly 60% of the housing stock here.

It is not just bags of rubbish on the pavements though. Many other large items including furniture and unwanted appliances also occupy the pavement space. Often, it is not even possible for the thinnest of pedestrians to squeeze through between the rubbish and the cars sideways.

Pedestrians completely displaced

If cars are parked closely together end-to-end, a pedestrian who is blocked from walking further may have to walk back along the pavement for some distance before they are able to find a gap large enough to get through so that they can walk up the road. Similarly, when trapped on the road with no means of getting onto a pavement they are vulnerable to oncoming traffic and hold ups are often caused when there is simply not enough room on the road either for both pedestrians and traffic at the same time. Parents pushing prams and children walking up the road is a common sight. Those less able, perhaps relying upon aids, are completely marginalised by this whole syndrome.

It has to be said, though, that it is actually the bins and the rubbish generally that takes up most of the pavement space with cars taking up an average 20-30 cm compared to bins and rubbish up to around 80cm, four times as much. That’s somewhere between 50 and  75% of the entire pavement taken up just for rubbish, all utterly disgusting to walk past if you could.

General street litter

Of the other factors, there is no doubt that non-residents have been seen illegally dumping here on occasions, though not frequently.  The next biggest contributor by far is the commercial rubbish, mostly from the unlicensed ‘Shady Grove’ night club with no attempt at recycling let alone proper disposal. Resident drivers and visitors often simply empty their car’s ashtrays along with other debris they dump in the gutter when cleaning out their vehicles. Too, many users of the street, even a few residents, simply discard their rubbish anywhere including bottles, often smashed, tin cans and food drink cartons, etc.

The majority of front gardens, which could easily be used to house bins, are simply not designed for that purpose though they are all spacious enough to be adapted. With so many steps leading to front doors, people cannot reasonably be expected to do much else but leave bins on the pavement in between collections as few have practical alternatives currently.

Turn the ‘volume’ up on capacity & education – do the maths!

It is this whole collection of causes of the rubbish problem here that needs to be addressed and solutions found. The total volume of all individual wheelie bins combined is simply way too small for the total volume of rubbish generated even discounting that left here by non-residents and there is certainly not room for any of it to remain on the pavements. One has to seriously doubt whether there were any volume based calculations done at all based on realistic criteria.

But, certainly, the educational message regarding recycling is just not getting through to some people and, actually, may never do. However, isn’t that always the case with any ‘new idea’. Some people just take longer than others to adopt the stipulated measures and what is the incentive for them to do otherwise when the rules are not practically enforceable? Could this not have been easily foreseen?

These problems are far from unique to Drummond Road, being prevalent all over Bristol, even Clifton. But, the narrower roads here make it worse.

Feel free to comment here and also look next at our Solutions section in which we look at what can be done to correct this problem.