Bin Lorries
It used to be that the Council used to come round and pick up the bins once a week.
Now, the people of Moville only get their bins emptied, and their rubbish taken away, every fortnight.
If they forget, or don’t get their bins out in time they have full bins and another two weeks to wait till the bin men come again.
How did we get to this?
Donegal Council
It was supposed to be that when the Council stopped taking the bins away that it would open it up to competition.
However, the people of Moville now have a lesser service and it is an absolute disaster if they forget to put their bins out every second Tuesday.
It used to be that one bin company came one week on a Tuesday and the other came on the Wednesday of the following week.
It meant that Moville people would get their bins taken away every week. Even if they forgot to put their bins out there was only a week to wait till the next one came.
Christmas Break
However, one year, one of the companies gave their staff a week off over Christmas (and didn’t pick up any bins) and the other didn’t.
The people of Moville now found that they the two companies were picking up bins in the same week, one on a Tuesday and one on a Wednesday – the next day.
So, they were coming only every two weeks and on consecutive days now.
Although this was not ideal for Moville people, it meant that if they forgot to put the bins out there was a second chance the next day.
However, it meant the Tuesday company got most of the business and the Wednesday company got, quite literally in this case, the scraps.
Obviously they got less business and made less money.
New Rules for Bin Lorries
Then the rules were changed. I don’t where the law came from – probably an EU rule.
It seems that the bin companies’ bin lorries weren’t sufficient for the task and didn’t follow the new rules.
It would have meant the Wednesday company having to buy new bin lorries costing €76,000 each.
Wow!
They could not afford it, especially as they were getting much less business than the other company and so went out of business.
Bin Lorry Monopoly
Now that means that there is once again a monopoly in Moville and the bins only get taken away every two weeks with no safety net that the bust bin company provided.
That’s not good for the people of Moville and it’s certainly not good for the health of the people of Moville with two-weeks old rubbish (and sometimes four weeks old rubbish) lying outside houses in the town.
This is certainly not an advance on what we had before.