‘Don’t film our binmen’ plea issued as new footage emerges
Richard Evans, local democracy reporter
More video footage has emerged of a crisis-hit council recycling service.
Binmen in Denbighshire have been filmed climbing on to a recycling truck to empty materials into a cage, in what appears to be a breach of health and safety rules.
The footage was shot in Carrog, near Corwen in Denbighshire by a local resident who wants to remain anonymous in the past few weeks. It shows a Denbighshire County Council worker climbing on to the vehicle and throwing recycling into a “co-mingling cage”.
‘Last resort’
Co-mingling was introduced as a “last resort” by an authority beset by complaints and missed bin collections. It allows for dry recycling – which has been separated and washed by residents – to be placed into a single container.
The recyclable material is then separated at a council depot after the round is completed in a bid to speed up collections..
A Denbighshire County Council spokesperson said the incident was “investigated and addressed appropriately”. The authority went on to urge local people not to film staff at work after several videos circulated on social media, including one were workers apparently dumped batteries into residents hedges.
Another video showed workers appearing to dump food on dry recycling.
Investigated
A council spokesman said: “The incident described in the video happened some weeks ago and was investigated and addressed appropriately at the time as an internal matter. Staff have been reminded of the correct actions to take while delivering the service to residents.
“Co-mingled collections are only being used as a last resort when standard collections cannot be carried out. This is a practice that will be phased out. When this type of collection is necessary, recycling is kept separate from the food wherever possible, enabling the waste to still be recycled after the round is complete.”
He added: “We would ask residents to not film operatives whilst they are working as this can make them feel rushed or intimidated whilst carrying on with their day-to-day work. We would encourage residents who have an issue or a query regarding their collection to contact the council so that their issue can be investigated and resolved.”
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In my bit of Sir Ddinbych the transition to the new form of recycling collection has actually happened with very few glitches, and none of them significant.
Until this week, when our recycling – all carefully separated into discrete ‘compartments’ as now requested – was collected, all mixed in together, in a very basic lorry with a cage on the back. Presumably one or more of the County Council’s new vehicles was out of commission!
In general, filming someone without their knowledge or permission is an abusive act. It may be justified in some cases to prevent or record a crime. But I’m not sure trying to get someone fired for doing a sloppy job counts.
There is no law to prevent this! I tried to stop an extremely creepy man filming a group of older primary school children in bathing suits whilst on a school activity. I was told that there is nothing in law to prevent this.
It should be harassment.
And any misuse of footage should be a copyright offence because people should automatically own the copyright of their own likeness.
Aaah I follow you, nothing ‘legal’ we can do about it…