‘Pop-up’ recycling scheme is 'totally useless', say Black Country residents denied access to nearby tip

People in Coseley say furniture and bulky items are being dumped on the street after the area was denied access to the Anchor Lane tip last year.

Dudley Council last week unveiled a monthly mobile collection scheme to help people in the north of the borough recycle unwanted items. But locals are furious that the council’s new recycling unit will not accept large household goods.

The mobile recycling unit will operate from 9am to 4pm on the third Saturday of every month. Access to Anchor Lane in Bilston has been denied to Dudley residents after Dudley Council and Wolverhampton Council, who operate the tip, failed to agree a deal.

In addition, the nearest available tip in Stourbridge – a journey that could take up to an hour and a half – is available by appointment only and places are limited. During a meeting last week, Dudley’s Labour opposition asked why it had taken 19 months for a replacement service for the Anchor Lane tip to be put in place.

Labour Councillor Keiran Casey said: “We’ve been raising this issue and putting alternatives in place since then so it is a bit ridiculous to claim it as a massive victory when we are 19 months down the line.” But now the council has said that the mobile recycling unit will not accept mattresses or furniture.

This news comes as household items were dumped across Dudley over the weekend. Long-time Anchor Lane user and Coseley resident Brian Hinton said he now has furniture and mattresses piling up in his house and has no money to pay hundreds of pounds for a private skip.

He said: “It’s totally useless for me, with Anchor Lane I was able to go down there at least four times a day and dump my rubbish. “I took a shed down but I can’t do that with this new idea of theirs. It’s no use at all, I don’t want to pay hundreds of pounds for a skip, I’ve got loads of rubbish here now and I just don’t know what to do with it.

“It’s ridiculous, It’s no good for us, you have to make an appointment to go up there and tip your rubbish and it’s only on a Saturday which is totally inconvenient. I’m totally against it. It’s taken them nearly two years to bring this in and I’m furious.

“If everyone is trying to use the skip on one day they’d all be coming to use it, it would be chaos and the rubbish would be blowing all over the residents and their gardens who live next to it. It’s a messy situation.”

Dudley Council has said the mobile unit would be able to accept the vast majority of household items – but needed to draw the line somewhere.

Councillor Shaz Saleem, cabinet member for highways and public realm, said: “The pop-up site will be able to accept a huge range of waste including wood, scrap metal, small electrical items, residual waste, bricks, rubble, plasterboard, household waste, green waste and general recycling.

“I’m very proud of the initiative, which will offer people in the north of the borough an alternative to travelling to Stourbridge to get rid of their waste. It has been placed in the St Thomas’ ward as we know from recent figures it has the highest instances of fly-tipping in the borough.

“Running alongside the pop-up tip, through our You’ve Been Shamed page we will continue to ask the public’s help to identify those caught fly-tipping on our new state-of-the-art CCTV cameras. Those caught will be dealt with in the strongest possible terms.

“There are a couple of reasons why the pop-up site cannot accept mattresses and furniture. Firstly, we have restrictions imposed on us by the Environment Agency regarding how the site can operate, especially as it is a trial.

“Secondly, we also want to try and make sure as many residents as possible can use the site. Accepting larger bulky items will eat up the capacity quicker and mean fewer people can use it.

“Residents can have mattresses and furniture collected from their homes for a small fee, and these larger items can still be taken to the site in Stourbridge.”