The Hampshire council has introduced an alternate weekly collection system for its refuse and recycling in the last year, but the last wave of wheeled bin deliveries has been delayed by two fires that have occurred this month.
On July 18, a deliberate fire at the council's original storage site destroyed over 2,000 bins, causing the council to move its surviving bins to a new site next to the city's naval firepower museum.
But 56 fire fighters from around the region were called to a fire at that building at 6.13am on Tuesday (July 27). A further 7,000 to 8,000 bins were destroyed in this second fire, and the listed building in which they were being stored was “badly damaged and in a dangerous structural state”, causing the temporary closure of the next-door museum.
A council spokeswoman told letsrecycle.com: “About two weeks ago someone set fire to our site destroying about 2,000 bins, so we moved the rest of them, but now we have lost 10,000 bins in the last couple of weeks.”
Gosport's bins were originally supplied by Otto (UK), but the council said no decision has yet been made concerning the replacement bins. The council “may go back to Otto, or could go through the tender route”.
Police are investigating the fires, the spokeswoman said, as well as a series of smaller fires before the first significant fire at the council's original wheeled bin storage site.
“Some people are saying it is because of the alternate weekly collections, some people are saying its kids, some people are saying it's someone with a grudge against the council,” the spokeswoman said.
Security
“We are now putting in new security measures,” she said, “but once we get our replacement bins delivered, they will be almost immediately given out to householders, so this shouldn't happen again.”
The spokeswoman said that there had been some initial concerns among the public at the new alternate weekly collection system, which sees general refuse collected on one week, while paper, card, plastic and cans are collected the next week. But, she said that since the scheme had been introduced, there had been a great deal of positive feedback, and that people were now “really singing its praises”.
Back in December 2003, Hampshire county council took the decision to close the county's fourth busiest household waste recycling centre – in Gosport – because of “repeated acts of arson and vandalism”. Before the closure, 18,000 had been spent on security at the Grange Road site, but to no avail (see letsrecycle.com story).
Part of Hampshire's Project Integra waste partnership, Gosport recycled 9.1% of its waste in 2002/03, but has since “dramatically increased” this figure. The council spokeswoman said it now expects to reach its 2005/06 target of recycling or composting 27% of its household waste.
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