Council hits out over rubbish-strewn streets at World Heritage Site
Richard Evans, local democracy reporter
A Welsh council has blamed the public for rubbish-strewn streets at a World Heritage Site after bins were left unemptied over the bank-holiday weekend.
Unemptied and overfilled bins meant Conwy’s High Street pavements were strewn with chip shop cartons, ice cream containers, and pizza boxes during the busy Easter holidays.
It is not the first time unemptied bins has led to rubbish-strewn streets in the town during busy holiday periods.
No excuse
A spokeswoman for Conwy County Council blamed the public for creating the mess.
“Over the bank holiday weekend, council staff were out from 7 am to 6 pm, emptying bins and litter picking at key tourist destinations across the county,” she said.
“We expect visitors and residents to act responsibly with their litter – plenty of bins are provided around Conwy town, and there is no excuse for dropping rubbish on the floor. If a bin is full, people should use the next available bin instead.”
In July last year Conwy County Council received complaints about empty take-away cartons, chip shop trays, and fizzy drink cans discarded across the town’s Morfa Bach car park.
Conwy blamed the mess on seagulls, despite the 217-space pay-and-display car park having anti-seagull bins.
Sunday Times judges recently described Conwy as one of the best places to live in the UK.
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Westminster’s fault.
This makes me angry as there are enough bins provided around Conwy for people to use, it is pure laziness.
Make the takeaway industry responsible for maintaining the bins and clearing up the mess from their establishments and not the council tax payer. Roads throughout the UK are filthy with tins and cartons from takeaways who’s proprietors couldn’t care less about as long as their tills are overflowing quite similar to the bins.
In order to employ more street sweepers and litter pickers you’ve got to have more money Unless and until there is a Government in London that is prepared to significantly increase public spending this will continue to be a common site in towns up and down Cymru.
Westminster’s fault.
Ysbwriel
Litter is a big problem in Colwyn Bay. The town is filthy now. Litter is everywhere. There are lots of bins around. I’m afraid the Council do have a point, that it is mostly sheer laziness and indifference that are the main problems.
However, since the Council started charging people to take large waste items to the recycling centre in Mochdre, some careless people have started fly tipping more.
Conwy council “blames the public”
Conwy council “blames the seagulls”
Conwy council is paid, by the public, to cope with this sort of thing. Conwy council, in failing to provide adequate rubbish facilities, is entirely responsible and should be fined or somehow sanctioned.
Additionally, if a bin is full, people need to find another one or take their rubbish home. Leaving stuff “by the bin” or “on the bin” is the same as littering and should carry £1000 fine. If you can’t pay that’s ok, you get 2 weeks in prison instead.
I’ve just returned from a week in Slovakia, there is little if any rubbish on the streets, people just don’t drop litter, it’s the way of things. It’s simply a social thing and shared responsibility between community and authorities. Kids don’t go around ripping up trees as we saw in Cardiff recently, trees in the park are decorated and left alone for others to enjoy. People don’t throw rubbish out of car windows. It seems from comments here that we all just blame someone else, it’s a social, cultural thing to keep the place tidy which I’m afraid to say… Read more »
Slovakia is no different to Germany, Netherlands, Austria, Switzerland, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland and many other European countries.
Unlike the UK people in the about countries just don’t throw litter.
The bins around cardiff are the same.
There’s two bins outside our local shop and they are constantly over flowing.
The bins in the areas where people walk their dogs are over flowing with bags of poo.
It’s all connected to councils trying to trim their budgets.
That’s rich, the council blaming the public because the bins are full.