“Rick

I agree with all you say - except that we have never had a problem with the brown bin being emptied every 2 weeks even if there is only a very small amount of food waste in it - as you say you can't always fill it with garden waste and of course many properties don't have big gardens (or not at all) - they certainly won't want to pay”

“The whole thing has been a debacle.. we need to see accountability and transparency around who, when and how the decisions around the Orange bag scheme were made and what they have cost the taxpayer?

This is gross negligence and nobody is being held accountable in Drrby City Council or even willing to hold their hands up and say 'you know what we really got this wrong.. we should have listened to our citizens'.”

“recycling centres will not accept cardboard because of the ink used,it isnt the councils fault at all,people should get facts right before they start the usual "council bashing"!!!!!”

“@sniffer the issue with cardboard was that PAS100 targets for compost considered cardboard fragments as contamination which was the main reason for it having to leave the brown bin.
@marcus_one the orange bag scheme was introduced as a stop gap because that area of the contract was up for renewal in 2015. I dont like the orange bag but I can see why they did it because if they gave us a bin only to change it in 2015 when the contract came up I am sure many of us would moan again.
On the subject of costs people have to realise that on the aspect of cardboard and the orange bag we have gone from PAYING over £47 per tonne for it to be composted to EARNING money from it - from Dec 2011 - Mar 2012 the city earnt £54,000 from it - if that rate continued thats over £160,000 per year. Ok its meant more lorries and staff but the new proposal to put it in the blue bin along with paper will address that. Personally I have concerns related to quality of the card and paper via this route but atleast its narrowing the amount of recepticals and addressing the bag issue. The big downside is that means a bigger blue bin - costing approx £2 million - I have suggested to the council they convert the brown bin to mixed recyclables and then just issue a new coloured bin to those mad enough to pay their garden waste tax !”

“@littleoversim sorry but your wrong,its because of the ink”

“Fill your boots:

http://tinyurl.com/asc6lfn”

“It is messed simply because of cash.

Most local authorities have introduced systems to introduce charges and give them a name other than direct or indirect taxation. Why do you think so many have taken over so many civil functions, CASH, Nottingham for example have made over £3M from parking fines alone and of this £2.3M is actually profit.

Look around the country at local schemes and once you find one council has introduced charges they all get onto it.”

“I haven't had a problem with the orange bags - mine was mislaid somewhen and I haven't got round to collecting a new one but the guys still take my cardboard from a different bag every fortnight.
I put a lot of the recent changes down to things outside the council's control - they weren't responsible for this (EU?) decision that no cardboard can go in with compostable stuff (I still read in gardening coulmns that you should put paper/ card in your own compost bin but hey ..) and I think they don't exactly want to charge £40 a year for the brown bin cos they know that will change people's recycing habits but better that than cut services further for older people or mental health or ...”

“@sniffer The compost has to meet PAS100 and the contamination levels were reduced and that contamination - as advised to me by the people from WRAP etc was visual cardboard contamination. WRAP are the organisation that sets out the composts end specification. There are some issues with ink but considering green waste can contain pesticides and herbicides inks are a secondary issue. The important thing is the council now makes money from the cardboard instead of paying for its composting so its a step in the right direction.”

“Re the issue with brown bin smells - one bucket of earth is allowed in there - just use a bit at a time to cover up the food/kitchen waste. If you've wooden floors, tiled or woollen carpets the hoover dust can be used.
Better still donate any food to the growing numbers of food banks in Derby.

S Story in Thursday's DT also relates to the waste contract - the incinerator developers Shanks need this oprganic waste in the blackbin as they think they can make money from burning it (ROCS - Renewable Obligation Certificates) Unfortunately for them, the process does not work as the prototypw incineration plant for Derby - on the Isle of Wight - is to shut down next year. The local authorities wrecked their own composting processes in order to send more organic waste (to be burned with the plastics packaging left in the blackbin after full recycling by the householder, this also caused dioxin limit breaches of 800% btw) to the incinerator and get ROCs. Derby City Council refuse to see this as a drawback though...........

Derby and Soyuth Derbyshire Friends of the Earth”

“@derbyFoE thanks for the tip I'll try that. Unfortunately most of the stuff in there is mouldy bread, fruit and chicken bones so not suitable for food banks really! I still reckon it would be more hygenic for food waste to be collected once a week and I don't understand why councils didn't take up Eric Pickles on his offer of grants to do so.”