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Be brave and bin the politics Have the courage of your convictions: Phil Garvey You would think that waste managers within local authorities had enough on their plates just focusing on their core job roles and keeping up to date with the continuous change in EU and UK guidelines and requirements. But I am increasingly aware that they now have to justify to the public decisions made by their members, the councillors. I wonder how much time they have to devote to defending the decisions made by members, rather than being allowed to do their jobs. The real question though is why is there such an increase in challenges, directed to frontline waste executives and bin operatives, and where has it come from? It is because the UK is developing a wider culture of protectionism. This culture is being created by range of factors including politicians' careless, ill-judged comments and excessive national media crusades - namely the Daily Mail's one-sided and sensationalist negative reporting about wheelie bins. A good example of this was the tabloids' focus on the hysterical opposition of a minority few to wheelie bins that were supposedly blighting the aesthetics of a pretty village. This unhelpful reporting, encouraging public revolt and uproar, certainly doesn't help the waste manager's cause. The pressure on waste executives is being compounded by politicians looking to jump on the populist bandwagon rather than supporting council policies. We also have contradictory calls for policy changes - for example, emergency services groups stating that bins present fire hazards, health and safety bureaucrats advocating the use of wheelie bins, and pressure groups arguing for the impossible operational task of councils to provide multiple waste collection options. A line has to be drawn under this meddling. We should ensure that waste executives are empowered to make and keep decisions, and that the politicians and scaremongers are kept at bay. This means, for example, that if a decision is made on prohibiting cafes to place advertising boards on a high street, it is set in stone. What people don't realise is that a great deal of thought and time would have been employed to reach a decision such as this. The council would have had to go through all the processes of communicating the directive to traders and the resulting enforcement actions. Politicians should support these decisions and back the council if people complain. If a logical or necessary decision is made by a council to change from weekly bag collection to alternate bin collection, councillors should back this as well. The waste manger or bin operative should not have to absorb and deal with the resulting public disagreement - this is the job of the politician. The waste professional's sole responsibility should be to implement policies - not take the flack from objectors. Phil Garvey is managing director of Whitespace Waste Software Posted on 15 December 2009
Source: LAWR
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