A new scheme designed to protect binmen from bumpy roads will mean thousands of coloured bins will soon be littering some of Fife’s most scenic countryside, it has been warned.
Fife Council is introducing a new rural recycling collection that will see 5,400 households issued with two additional wheeled bins and told to leave their rubbish at their road ends.
The move is being made to prevent prolonged exposure of refuse collectors to whole-body vibrations from travelling over rough road surfaces, which it is said could cause health problems such as back pain.
It is also aimed at increasing the amount of waste recycled and improving the service to residents.
Homes affected those with an access road that is poorly surfaced, has potholes, is too narrow or lacks room to turn will be issued with green and blue bins for plastic, cans and landfill waste, with existing grey bins used for paper and card.
But there are concerns that instead of transporting them back and forth each week, householders will leave bins lying at road ends.
Former councillor Andrew Arbuckle said: “I am concerned about the effect on the countryside. There is a strong argument for bin lorries not travelling a mile up a track for a single house but where you have a clutch of houses up a road there could be a dozen bins of each colour. Folk will leave their bins out and it could become quite an eyesore.”
The new system, which will be rolled out from the end of May, will affect homes across Fife but predominantly those in the east of the region.
Creich and Flisk have a particularly high proportion of homes accessed by tracks and the chairman of the local community council, Alan Evans, said a number of issues would be posed for residents who remained largely unaware of the change about to be “foisted” upon them.
He said: “Placing a moratorium on bin lorries travelling down access roads with potholes in excess of 25mm in depth seems over-zealous. I suspect that many private access roads are in rather better condition than some local adopted routes, such as those around Balmerino and Gauldry, which have had potholes many times that depth for years.
“There are also visual impact issues. It is not uncommon for several homes to share an access road and with up to three different-coloured bins for each home, the resultant multi-coloured clutter in some of Fife’s most attractive countryside will result in visual blight.
“In the next couple of weeks I would urge householders to study the details of this proposal carefully and assess how it will impact on them and to discuss matters of concern with transportation and environmental services.”
Council senior manager for environmental operations Roddy Mann said the scheme would help Fife recycle even more of its waste.
He said: “Rural premises have largely been excluded from benefiting from recycling services, as up until now the main changes have been focused on towns and villages. The practice of coloured bins being placed at rural road ends is not a new one across Scotland and is the norm for the majority of rural premises in the central area of Fife.
“The road-end collection system also ensures that householders do not have a large refuse collection vehicle taking its toll on private roads. We’re now finalising arragements to write to all householders who are currently being considered for the scheme.”
The new collection arrangements were agreed by the council in 2011 but implementation was delayed until a new shift system was introduced for refuse collectors.