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Council bins pay-as-you-throw technology

We pay our bin men to collect the refuse and recycling, not to act as Government tax collectors
Council Leader John Fuller

The first council in England to trial microchips in bins has scrapped the system after fears over pay-as-you-throw bin tax and problems with the technology.

South Norfolk Council Leaders ordered the chip-in-bin switch-off after a five-year technology trial identified serious shortcomings, including inconsistent and unreliable weighing data, computer problems, electrical and equipment failures and unacceptable delays to the daily bin rounds.

Government plans for pay-as-you-throw rely on accurate weighing of every bin every week but the trial shows that any tax could not be fair given the unreliability of data.

The South Norfolk results now call into question the five new pay-as-you-throw pilot schemes planned by the Government.

South Norfolk Council Leaders came to office in the May 2007 local government elections on a manifesto promise not to introduce pay-as-you-throw using the chip-in-bin technology.

And after being briefed on the difficulties staff faced trying to get the technology problems ironed out, they called a halt, and ordered the system switch-off in September 2007.

No bin weighing data on any South Norfolk household has been collected since then.

South Norfolk Council applied for grants from Defra to help fund a kerbside refuse and recycling scheme across its district, including chip-and-bin technology. The grants totalling over £1m bought new bin lorries fitted with the on-board weighing technology, which cost £25,000 per lorry.

South Norfolk began with the technology in one lorry in 2002, and by 2006 the four-year phased introduction of twin wheeled bins to all the district's more than 50,000 households was complete. The technology was now running in the fleet of 12 bin lorries.

Each lorry was using it to record weights during up to a thousand of bin lifts a day, but a combination of electrical, data, mechanical and hydraulic faults meant the system had to be repeatedly turned-off so the bin round could be completed.

Council Leader John Fuller said:

“Any chip-in-bin system would have to accurately record the weight of every bin, every week, without mistakes, for a whole year. But the system simply didn't work reliably enough.

“A system that sounded good on paper in London failed to work at 7.30am on a cold and wet Monday in December in South Norfolk. It was time to bin the technology.

“We pay our bin men to collect the refuse and recycling, not to act as Government tax collectors. Chip-in-bin is now proven to be another failed Government IT project that puts another hole in the database state.”

He said that staff persevered in trying to resolve data problems, spending hundreds of hours in contacts with the software firm, the weighing system supplier and the bin supplier.

Councillor David Bills, Cabinet Member for Environment, Health, Recycling and Safety, joined bin crews and saw the problems for himself.

"I spent a day on the rounds with a bin crew and experienced the frustrations of chips not being read which required a manual over-ride to take place. This added to our resolve to put an immediate stop to it, knowing that it would also reassure our residents.

"The whole concept of pay-as-you-throw is fraught with problems. It is yet again, the Government threatening people with a new tax rather than encouraging recycling. People may start putting rubbish into neighbours' bins, burning rubbish or even fly tipping. It just does not make sense.

"South Norfolk is working very hard with its neighbouring councils to provide a Zero Waste Park where unwanted items can be refurbished and passed on for further use. This is the kind of encouragement that people want."

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