After moving to the area in Feb’ 2021 I was surprised that it was such a chore to find out exactly which dustbin had to be wheeled out on what days.
While I understand that managing waste collections for tens of thousands of households is a big job, and further appreciate that the area has to be split up into complicated ‘zones’ in order to facilitate such collections, it doesn’t seem a far out idea that residents should be able to access that information quickly and simply.
(In my opinion public services should be efficient and accessible, a great shining example would be Gov.uk, whose websites are as described. Further to this, their code is open, something I admire.)
So, why was I surprised that my local council had a convoluted and over engineered and yet somehow criminally underutilised system? Well in short, I wasn’t. It was in my opinion par for the course for them.
Within weeks of arriving in the area I had already implemented a simple script which would check against the council’s website and would send me a message in the evening prior to a waste collection, but one thing did bug me – during times of national holiday the website wouldn’t update to reflect any temporary collection days, instead the local council would send a leaflet to each household advising them of the temporary change.
While receiving a scrap of paper was fine for those who didn’t need an accessible method of information delivery it failed those with advanced needs. My script worked (and remains to work) well at ensuring I always put the right bin out, but at the start of 2023 after missing the temporary dates paper and having an overfull bin for weeks during the Xmas and New Year period I lost my rag and lodged an official complaint stating that their online systems should match their paper versions.
Paraphrased my question was: “is the system capable of handling having temporary collection dates? If so why aren’t you updating it?”
They didn’t reply; after an appropriate number of weeks passed I became eligible to forward my request onto the Ombudsman. This must have given them a metaphorical kick up the waste disposal unit, as the council reached out very promptly with the information I had originally requested!
“After investigation I can advise that in previous years the calendar on the website has not been updated to reflect the information, we provide within the annual leaflet that is sent out to homes across the Borough of <redacted>. Following receipt of your complaint we have investigated the possibility of amending the website to align it with the information on the calendar.
I am happy to report that following conclusion of this investigation our provider has advised that if given appropriate time then the website can be temporarily amended to reflect the changes in the schedule of collections through the Christmas and New Year periods.
We shall arrange for the information on 2023/2024 collections to be shared once they have been finalised.“
I was placated and actually happy with this response (despite waiting months for it). I dislodged my complaint from the Ombudsman, and the council closed my complaint as satisfied. I had to wait until Christmas 2023 (about 7 months) to see if they would keep their promise.
Christmas rolls around and unsurprisingly (and despite a telephone call from me in late November reminding them of their promise) there were no changes to the data. Due to other commitments at the time I was not able to devote any more time to chasing an unwilling service provider.
A twist occurs shortly after the new year when the council unveil a brand new website (or perhaps it was launched earlier and I just missed it)
To my shock it is now in my opinion even harder to check which waste collections are available for your property.
As my script was still working I decided to just keep my distance from it, until I saw a call for help in my local area Facebook group.
It was 6th March 2024 and during my morning porcelain ritual I saw a facebook post wherein some townspeople were complaining about the council’s latest attempt at an information access service.
Having finished a morning waste disposal of my own I headed down to the kitchen and poured coffee into a cup. By the time I had made it back to my desk I had already decided I was going to register a domain, and put together a basic website that allowed locals to access their bin collection data easily. 5 minutes later I had a working prototype.
30 minutes later and before the coffee was even cold the site was functional. I made a post on the same local facebook group inviting local people to use it, and here we are.
So, maybe give it a go? or even read the code!
