St Peter Port trying to sort out rubbish problem

Residents and businesses have become increasingly concerned about mess left on the streets before and after waste collection days.

The parish office has employed two additional members of staff – but their phone lines are already overrun with waste-related calls.

‘We’re trying to tackle the general problem.

‘It appears to be multi-occupancy areas, such as flats, which have very little storage for people to put their rubbish and so they put it in the public bins,’ said St Peter Port senior constable Zoe Lihou.

‘We’re trying to educate people and remind them of guidance, but we are still receiving several complaints.’

A letter writer to the Guernsey Press recently claimed that the streets of St Peter Port had become much dirtier since bin stickers were introduced as part of the island’s new waste collection system.

Rubbish bags are sometimes left out which are the wrong colour for collection or without stickers or they are left out too early and ripped open by gulls or rats.

Larger items have also been dumped in the streets, such as mattresses, microwaves and fridges.

One suggestion was to raise parish taxes to improve collection systems or to get rid of bin stickers altogether. Mrs Lihou would like to propose ice berg bins.

Ice berg bins look like the black bins already in St Peter Port, but the surface level bin can be removed to reveal a vat underneath.

Mrs Lihou said they would allow more waste to be thrown away and carbon footprint to be reduced with fewer collections required and would limit inconvenience and noise.

Parishioners help themselves to bins at the Constables’ Office in Lefebvre Street. Guidelines and advice are available on the parish website.

‘Paid staff from the parish are effectively becoming an expensive call centre. It’s all cost, time and lack of efficiency,’ said Mrs Lihou.

‘We are trying to find different methods that we know will work, but it’s difficult to please everybody.’

Burnt Lane has been identified as one of the hotspots.

‘The convent have been in touch saying that the children at Notre Dame have noticed that there is a lot of rubbish being dumped in their area, which of course is a health issue because they walk to school that way,’ said Mrs Lihou.

‘It also makes the pavements impassable due to rubbish, which causes accessibility issues.

‘People leaving rubbish out at the wrong times in the Arcade is a particular nuisance for mobility-impaired people and visually-impaired people.’