Council accuses private refuse company of cherry-picking

“We are in business to stay in business.” So said Fingal’s Director of Environmental Services, PJ Howell, when he threw down the gauntlet to Greenstar and other companies who are trying to move into the Fingal refuse collection business.

He was responding to the announcement that Greenstar are offering a service based on an annual fee of€55 per year – exactly half the amount recently introduced by the Council. This is only the tip of the iceberg according to PJ, as Greenstar are also charging for the weight of each bin they empty as well as a flat collection charge each time they empty the bin. He also points out that the private company charge €5 a month for glass and offer no brown bin collection.

He accused the company of trying to “cherry pick” the better off areas and leave the council to fund the disadvantaged areas and provide other services that would not be profitable for the private sector.

According to PJ “when you do the sums you will find that Greenstar will actually cost you over €300 a year whereas the total cost of our service is only €226 a year. People should think long and hard before they switch to a private operator. These people usually have a reputation of offering a cheap service when they come into an area initially but once they are established they bump up their prices.

“In any area where private operators are not in competition with the local authority the costs to householders are a lot higher. All you have to do is look at the Greenstar website and see how much they are charging in other areas,” he claimed.

Last year the county council lost over €6m on the operation of the service. With the introduction this year of a fortnightly green bin service and a new fortnightly brown bin service this loss was set to escalate. To offset this the council introduced an annual charge of €110 per household, which has lead to some negative publicity.

“When we were looking at how to pay for the service we examined three options – a fixed annual charge, increasing the bin tag price to €15 or a combination of green and black bin charges,” said PJ.

“We carried out a survey of households which found that most people wanted an enhanced service. Not surprisingly most people said they would prefer it to be free but given the three options most people went for the one we are now introducing.”

The polluter pays is a fundamental tenet of EU law and it is up to each country to interpret that legislatively as they see fit. According to PJ, “we started with 0% recycling a few years ago and now we have achieved 25%. By the end of this year we expect to reach 40%. In fact people could get that up to about 2/3rds if they recycle properly.”

He also points to the other costs associated with the council’s service. “We recently spent almost €1m developing our recycling centre at Coolmine and the annual running costs of the centre are well over €800,000. We have over 70 free bottle banks around the county and we offer a low cost bulky green waste service at our recycling centres also.”

The council are also introducing a new smart card system to make it easier for people to pay for the service. “There will be 150 outlets around the county where customers can pay for the service by instalments. When the full amount has been paid we will send out stickers for all three bins,” said PJ.

“The charge is for the whole service. People then have to buy a bin tag each time they put out their black bin but we will be encouraging people to recycle to cut down on the number of times they will have to put out their black bin.

“Everybody knows that the service costs money and the amount we get back from recycling only pays about 5% of the cost of its collection and sorting. If we did not have a charge for the service we would have to pay for it by reducing other council services which would not be equitable.”

He disputes claims that the increased charges will hit people on low incomes. “We operate a waiver scheme under which no one on social welfare has to pay. Anyone on social welfare won’t have to pay the flat charge and they will be entitled to a minimum of 26 tags per year. There are currently 8,000 households in Fingal eligible for this waiver scheme. As a contribution to social equity we have gone a long way,” he claims pointing out that private operators don’t offer any such concessions to people on low incomes.

Greenstar is owed by National Toll Roads (NTR) who operate the hugely profitable Westlink toll bridge. This is not NTR’s first foray into the refuse business. In the mid 90’s local community groups staged a major protest campaign to stop a proposal by that company to build a massive super-dump in Tyrrelstown.

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