Raeburn rot

Locals call for council clean up.

A petition calling for the Raeburn Road recycling site to be cleaned up every weekend was submitted to Kingston Council on Wednesday evening.

Councillor Ian George presented the petition to Surbiton neighbourhood committee on behalf of residents in Meldone Close, which is situated at the side entrance to the site. Councillor George said, "Problems of fly-tipping do occur and have continued to do so for at least the past five years, but that’s no excuse for ignoring the problem."

Comments

The campaign for a Raeburn Avenue skatepark starts here!

Hmm... it's a great spot for a skatepark...

Just want to point out that as a Berrylands resident who lives in a flat, I don't enjoy the collection of the full range of items... so I have cardboard mountain at home right now. The Raeburn collection point is useful in that it's marginally closer than the Villier's Road one.

Fair point.
I wasn't aware that the full recycling service hasn't yet been rolled out to all the flats in the borough.
On RBK website, it says that "It is hoped that all flats in the borough will have recycling facilities by Decemberr 2009. ".
link : http://www.kingston.gov.uk/browse/environment/recycling.htm

Once that point is reached, I reckon these sites should be shut down (and sold if there's no other use for them).

Why not close it down and sell the site off?

Why do we need this site now that we have excellent weekly collections of cardboard, paper, glass, tin cans, etc?

I could understand why it was needed back in the days when we didn't have all these recyclables collected - it would have saved a trip to the tip.

dear anon (why not sign up so we have a name for you?)

Am i right in thinking you are being sarcastic?

No, I'm not being sarcastic.
Think about it.
These small neighbourhood recycling sites for paper and cardboard were provided in the days before we got our weekly recycling doorstep collection.
The idea was to increase recycling rates by making it more convenient to recycle, ie without having to travel to the tip.

We now have a much more convenient doorstep service that collects everything that these old neighbourhood sites were set up to collect. They have clearly lost their original purpose.

They should be sold off for much needed cash to keep council tax bills down.
Or at the very least, shut them down and save the money used to maintain them.

So where would i send old metal, electronics, wood soil and tree limbs, none of which are collected at doorstep at present?
If the recycling is so good in kingston, why do i still have to put plastics etc in the black bags?

I currently have;
a black bin for general unrecyclable waste,
a black bin with a green G on top for garden waste....excluding tree limbs and soil....which i quite like and am happy to pay the £65 for,
a bag for cardboard waste........too small and i use an extra tub of my own,
a food waste tub,
and 2 tubs for paper and bottle cans etc.
Oh and another for putting clothes etc in for recycling.
7 recepticles for waste.....and yet still the black bin for unrecyclables gets filled up...
Our road is lke a bombsite on pick up day......and i have my doubts as to where it all goes....

Quite frankly, recycling is a good idea if it is realistic. If the council recycled everything THEN it can sell of the dump.
However, the council doesn't and can't, so your proposal simply will increase fly tipping by the ignorant, ruin our local environment and inconvenience all of us even more as we won't be able to dispose of 'unrecyclable' waste.....

To send our waste around the globe to china is an environmental crime of global proportions.
To store 'recyclable' paper in warehouses, 'cos no-one will buy it to recycle, is stupid.

We should be having a proper debate about use of incinerators to produce energy from flammable waste and construction of nuclear power plants as a matter of urgency, before we are held over a barrel by russian Gazprom...

We should be pouring TRILLIONS into the search for the holy grail, nuclear fission, which would produce clean power for the world and allow the millions in absolute poverty the opportunity to live like us...

Only my opinion though. ;-)

To deal with the only part of your post that relates to the topic in hand, ie the Raeburn site:

RE "So where would i send old metal, electronics, wood soil and tree limbs, none of which are collected at doorstep at present?"

NONE of the things you list are allowed at the Raeburn Avenue site at the minute, or ever have been.
To repeat - everything that was ever allowed to be left in the Raeburn Avenue site can be left in the weekly recycling collection. It has outlived its usefulness and money should be saved by shutting it down.

Re " so your proposal simply will increase fly tipping by the ignorant, ruin our local environment and inconvenience all of us even more as we won't be able to dispose of 'unrecyclable' waste....."

The truly ignorant are those like yourself who think that they can leave these things at Raeburn, when they are not, or never have been allowed. Anybody that does is actually flytipping.

Given that everything that you wish to leave at Raeburn Avenue can be collected in your weekly recycling, can you come up with any sensible reasons (ie not related to nuclear fusion) as to why we should keep it open?

I am a twit, eh???

I thought it was the villiers road dump that was being referred to (in which case my rant is a bit more relevant)

MrAnon is clearly talking sense

However, i was talking bollox as this article clearly refers to raeburn avenue.
I was talking bollox

Sorry to those whom i mortally offended ;-)

I really don't believe that all this recycling business is at all useful. Seems to me that we're just being lulled into massaging our consciences.

I don't bother. Everything goes into the bin. I simply don't believe, anyway, that the Council makes "GOOD" use of anything that's put into one of these extra boxes. In any case - if they're so concerned about picking out the bits & pieces that can be recycled (etc), well, they can do it themselves: that's why I pay the Council Tax.

For one particular example. Paper. Why on earth should we bother to make an effort to recycle it? The greater the SHORTAGE of paper, the greater is the economic pressure to grow trees, and, thereby, provide the materials for manufacturing NEW paper. End effect? MORE forest-ation ... greater production of oxygen by the trees in those forests ... countering the excessive production of carbon dioxide. Recycling paper only reduces the need to increase forest-ation.

Are you for real?

This facility is fab! I use it all the time - as I live just up the road. I'm not always ready on a Thursday night with bottles and cans so head to this brilliant facility.
We have an excellent guy, Chris (I think his name is) who from what I've seen arrives every Monday morning about 8:30-8:45 and ensures that the place is shipshape.

Lets not close something that is obviously working for us locally!!! Villiers Road is miles away for the many local older residents to get to....let alone all the other residents.

Though I appreciate Mr George will already have his eye on cutting good local facilities local, could he not focus on something worthwhile like prosecuting the irresponsible residents who can't tell the difference between a recycling facility and a 'tip'????

Hi. I see that I've been named by 'And another thing...', so thought I'd reply.

I have never mentioned cutting this facility and indeed, don't have the power to do so. I shouldn't think that the Lib Dem Council will even consider closing it until the flats receive a recycling service.

I don't have the power to prosecute "irresponsible residents" either.

I was involved in campaigning for the CCTV at the site in an attempt to stop the fly-tipping, but the council have publicly stated that they don't check it. I have volunteered to check the footage myself, but that offer was turned down. So unfortunately that was a waste of time and money.

All I want is for the Council to ensure (for as long as they decide to keep it open) that the site is reasonably clean and is free of rats. I don't think that is much to ask for.

Ian,

good to see a councillor getting involved in a genuinely open and democratic forum here at Surbiton.com.

While you're here - what are the local Tories doing about the critical shortage of Sep 2010 primary school places in Surbiton / Berrylands / Tolworth?
The council say that they need 120 bulge places, but that they can only find room for 60.
30 extra places at King Athelstan might help, but won't be enough.
Why won't anybody say just where they expect Surbiton / Berrylands / Tolworth children to be shunted?

Does your party support Surbiton / Berrylands / Tolworth children being forced to commute for seven years to Malden Manor for primary school?
If not, why not make some noise about the decision and pressurise the council to provide these places locally. For example, could St Matthew's not take another bulge class?
There's no good shouting about the Lib Dem's actions in April if you're not prepared to come up with some ideas of your own now.
Otherwise you'll just be seen as political opportunists.

Have a read through the primary schools thread if you need brought up to date on the issue.

So the only reason council tax payers need to pay tens of thousands a year for this redundant facility is because you're not always ready with your bottles and cans for the weekly recycling collection on a Thursday night ?????

Well what about either getting ready, or keeping them until the next thursday?
That way we can stop paying large amounts to keep these sites open, and flog them off if there's any interest.
After all, it's our money that's getting wasted.

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