Another example of a remark which led to a classic headline. The introduction of of Scarborough Council’s new recycling scheme had proved controversial and the councillor responsible for the waste portfolio admitted that he had not put the bin out on the right day. Anyway he took it in good spirit as it helped get the message out there to residents. BTW we are still friends, despite the headline, and it is scary to think that this was almost 15 years ago…

A SCARBOROUGH councillor has admitted to putting the wrong bin out during the first week of the council’s new waste collection arrangements.

Cllr Andrew Backhouse, who represents the Lindhead ward, “owned up” as he followed binmen on a round in Cayton and talked to people about how they were finding the new scheme yesterday.

The system, which uses green and blue bins, relies on residents separating out their recyclable materials into their blue bin from the normal household rubbish.

Cllr Backhouse admitted he had not read which week he needed to put out his new blue bin.

He said: “It should’ve been the green bin and I thought it was the blue bin. I put my blue bin out and it wasn’t emptied. My green bin will now have to last three weeks.”

Under the new arrangements, if residents put out the wrong bin, binmen will attach a tag to the bin explaining why the waste could not be collected.

As the portfolio holder for environment and transport Cllr Backhouse was responsible for introducing the new scheme.

He said: “We are a family of five and we will have to manage for three weeks and we will do that.”

Cllr Backhouse added that the scheme had been well received by residents with council workers collecting the expected amount of recycled materials for the entire week by Wednesday.

He said: “Some people have saved it up over the summer months.

“I am very pleased with the initial response.

“For some this is the first week and we are expecting a high recycling rate as well before it goes down to a reasonable rate.”

Cllr Backhouse said children were more open to the idea of recycling and the scheme could be expanded to include other materials. He said: “Glass is something we would like to look into further.”

Sue Webber, of Harford Road in Cayton, said she was quite happy with the new arrangements. She said: “To be honest I am putting the bin out and it’s not full at all. I have no problem with it.”

David Shipley, of nearby Estill Close, said he would have preferred to have a larger blue bin. He said: “The ones they have just issued are just slightly bigger. The only problem with the scheme is to do with plastics. You are uncertain which ones you can recycle.”

Harry Briggs, the council’s recycling coordinator, said that, out of 25,000 collections last week, reminder tags had been issued to just two per cent of residents, who could not be contacted, to put the right bin out.

He said: “During the initial stages please refer to your collection calendar. We were always going to have some problems during the first weeks.”

From the Scarborough Evening News on Friday, October 12, 2007.