Extremely high Panda bin charges

Daithi 1

Last year greenstar recyling started collecting in my area. They offered 6 months free if I went with them so I did. They soon pulled out due to lack of people in the area going with them, so Panda offered the same deal to go back with them.
Panda neglected to mention that I was automatically put on a pay by weight scheme which the government planned to introduce in July 2016 (this is August 2015). I currently owe Panda €357.12 having recently paid almost €200.00. And this is from just August until now. The average in Ireland is about €250 give or take

I have 2 babies so we bin a lot of nappies which obviously are quite heavy so it definitely would not suit my family to be on a pay by weight scheme.

These are the charges for pay by weight that the government has suggested.

"They are 11 cent per kilogramme of black bin, or residual waste; 6 cent per kilogramme of food or brown bin waste; and 2 cents per kilogramme for green or recyclable waste."

This is what Panda are charging me. Are they allowed to simply double the suggested government charge ?



I should add that since I have been in debt to Panda, Ive had to pay €20 every Monday to have my bins lifted on the following Tuesday, this has been in effect since January. So my billing period is only from August until December 31st. 4 months to accumulate a bill of €357.12 and I have paid almost €200.


Any thoughts or advice on this? Thanks

Michael D Not Higgins

Those are the suggested minimum prices per kg. I'm not sure on the government's plans or if they're implementing a maximum charge but looks like a standard case of monopoly extortion.

colm_mcm

are they not providing a recycling bin?

Daithi 1

colm_mcm wrote: »

are they not providing a recycling bin?

They are, that's on a different invoice.

Lu Tze

Daithi 1 wrote: »

Last year greenstar recyling started collecting in my area. They offered 6 months free if I went with them so I did. They soon pulled out due to lack of people in the area going with them, so Panda offered the same deal to go back with them.
Panda neglected to mention that I was automatically put on a pay by weight scheme which the government planned to introduce in July 2016 (this is August 2015). I currently owe Panda €357.12 having recently paid almost €200.00. And this is from just August until now. The average in Ireland is about €250 give or take

I have 2 babies so we bin a lot of nappies which obviously are quite heavy so it definitely would not suit my family to be on a pay by weight scheme.

These are the charges for pay by weight that the government has suggested.


This is what Panda are charging me. Are they allowed to simply double the suggested government charge ?



I should add that since I have been in debt to Panda, Ive had to pay €20 every Monday to have my bins lifted on the following Tuesday, this has been in effect since January. So my billing period is only from August until December 31st. 4 months to accumulate a bill of €357.12 and I have paid almost €200.


Any thoughts or advice on this? Thanks

Were you falsely informed of the rates at the time of switching? Did you enquire as to what they were? Not sure how far you will get, even if you were falsely informed of rates, maybe some sort of discount, as they have taken away nearly a quarter ton of waste from your house in 4 months.

From July all waste is charged by weight. This is to encourage (the cheaper) recycling. These are the new proposed MINIMUM rates:
Recycling / Green Bin – 2 cents a kilo
Food waste / brown bin – 6 cents a kilo
Residual waste / black bin – 11 cents a kilo

Daithi 1

Lu Tze wrote: »

Were you falsely informed of the rates at the time of switching? Did you enquire as to what they were? Not sure how far you will get, even if you were falsely informed of rates, maybe some sort of discount, as they have taken away nearly a quarter ton of waste from your house in 4 months.

I wasnt informed at all. I cant see why they brought in pay by weight a year early. 1/4 ton is average for a 4 person family.

An average family of four generates 30kgs of general waste on a fortnightly basis and the average weights of a recycling and brown bin are 12kgs and 5kgs respectively. On the old tag system, it cost €13.00 to lift the waste bin and €6.00 for recycling, totalling €19.00 per lift for two bins. On the new Pay by Weight system, you only pay for what you throw away. Your new fortnightly cost will be €11.29, based on the kg costs of 22 cent per kg for waste bin collections and 8 cent for recycling and compost.

4 people 26 collections of Waste, Recycling & Compost €265.00

http://www.barnarecycling.com/understanding-pay-by-weight-county-leitrim/

Different company but you get the idea. It's suggested you will pay €265.00 annually and I been charged about €500 for a 4 month period.

Agent Smyth

The rates quoted by the government are only minimum price per Kg and all providers charge in and around Pandas rates
The only way to reduce your bill is to recycle as much as possible into the brown and green bin although this will be charged from July this year
I don't have two babies or kids just me and the wife so our yearly bill is about €150 and this is with panda
The green bin goes out every 2nd week full, the brown bin about 4/5 times and the black bin twice a year with less then 50Kg in total

Michael D Not Higgins

Daithi 1 wrote: »

I wasnt informed at all. I cant see why they brought in pay by weight a year early. 1/4 ton is average for a 4 person family.


http://www.barnarecycling.com/understanding-pay-by-weight-county-leitrim/

Different company but you get the idea. It's suggested you will pay €265.00 annually and I been charged about €500 for a 4 month period.

I know you mentioned having two babies and nappies can be heavy. The site you quoted charge 22c compared to your charge of 26c for black bins and 8c compared to 15.5c for brown waste.

Their scenario is very different to yours as well, with 30kg black bin waste a fortnight. That's 135kg vs your 207kg for the equivalent period. That's 53% more waste at 18% higher charge.

Edit: Also note they front loaded the entire year's service charge, with the same waste, your next bill will be €87.25. You seem to get charged per lift too so I'd limit how often the bin goes out if it's not full.

Daithi 1

Michael D Not Higgins wrote: »

I know you mentioned having two babies and nappies can be heavy. The site you quoted charge 22c compared to your charge of 26c for black bins and 8c compared to 15.5c for brown waste.

Their scenario is very different to yours as well, with 30kg black bin waste a fortnight. That's 135kg vs your 207kg for the equivalent period. That's 53% more waste at 18% higher charge.

Edit: Also note they front loaded the entire year's service charge, with the same waste, your next bill will be €87.25. You seem to get charged per lift too so I'd limit how often the bin goes out if it's not full.

yeah i know it's not the exact same but generally a family of four rates should be about €250 per anum. I recycle as much as I can and as you can see 1/4 ton is about average also for a family of four.
If I had used this service for a full 12 months the cost would be about €2,000, which is about 40 a week. You get what I'm saying ?
I would have to be filling the bin with cement every week for a full year to accumulate that kind of bill.

Here is another anomaly on my bill. Same bin apparently collected twice on the same day at different weights.

Michael D Not Higgins

Daithi 1 wrote: »

yeah i know it's not the exact same but generally a family of four rates should be about €250 per anum. I recycle as much as I can and as you can see 1/4 ton is about average also for a family of four.
If I had used this service for a full 12 months the cost would be about €2,000, which is about 40 a week. You get what I'm saying ?
I would have to be filling the bin with cement every week for a full year to accumulate that kind of bill.

Here is another anomaly on my bill. Same bin apparently collected twice on the same day at different weights.

Firstly, dispute the anomaly with them.

Secondly, no it's not average. Using the numbers from that other website, you're producing more than 50% more than the 4 person family amount of black bin waste.

I don't know your recycling weight from the period but the EPA says on average each person is producing 367kg of waste per year. For a 4 person family over two months, that's 244kg and your brown bin and black bin alone are already over that amount.

I don't know where you're getting 2000/year from. By my reckoning, it would be 633.50 without the green bin.

You're hard hit by the black bin charges because you've got nappies. The best way to reduce your bill is focusing on reducing the amount that goes into the black bin.

Lu Tze

Daithi 1 wrote: »

I wasnt informed at all. I cant see why they brought in pay by weight a year early. 1/4 ton is average for a 4 person family.


http://www.barnarecycling.com/understanding-pay-by-weight-county-leitrim/

Different company but you get the idea. It's suggested you will pay €265.00 annually and I been charged about €500 for a 4 month period.

They didn't bring it in a year early as you say. I have been paying by weight since i moved in over a year ago. A legal obligation means all companies will have to do this, but many have been operating on a pay by weight basis for years. It does seem a bit strange to sign up for a service without enquiring about price. Definately query any anomalies on the bill.

mel123

Daithi 1 wrote: »

This is what Panda are charging me. Are they allowed to simply double the suggested government charge ?



I should add that since I have been in debt to Panda, Ive had to pay €20 every Monday to have my bins lifted on the following Tuesday, this has been in effect since January. So my billing period is only from August until December 31st. 4 months to accumulate a bill of €357.12 and I have paid almost €200.


Any thoughts or advice on this? Thanks

Simple answer is yes, they can charge you what you like. You dont have to pay it, unless of course they are the only ones in your area doing collections. Not sure what area you are in, but can you try greyhound or citybin and see what their charges are in comparison?
I don't meant to be harsh but it seems you went with them before checking out their charges and only now are querying it.
For what its worth, i'm annoyed at these charges being brought in this July.

Daithi 1

Michael D Not Higgins wrote: »

Firstly, dispute the anomaly with them.

Secondly, no it's not average. Using the numbers from that other website, you're producing more than 50% more than the 4 person family amount of black bin waste.

I don't know your recycling weight from the period but the EPA says on average each person is producing 367kg of waste per year. For a 4 person family over two months, that's 244kg and your brown bin and black bin alone are already over that amount.

I don't know where you're getting 2000/year from. By my reckoning, it would be 633.50 without the green bin.

You're hard hit by the black bin charges because you've got nappies. The best way to reduce your bill is focusing on reducing the amount that goes into the black bin.

Well, there are 5 in my family, I was just quoting the the average 4 family ammount.

my bill is total 500 for a four month period so thats 1500 over the year give or take.

Anyway, after calling them 4 times finally im getting somewhere. They can see i have been overcharged and are sorting it out. There was also a 110 addon for bin cleaning service that I never availed of.

Ill update when they call back with a revised bill.

Thanks for all your concerns.

spaceHopper

I'm with panda too, check you bill they also charge extra if your bin is over 5kg in may area. We have twin both in nappies as soon as they are out of nappies I'll switch but the only other company in my area is every two weeks. Because of nappies our bin is full every week.

CreepingDeath

We haven't been hit with the charge by weight yet, but I always thought someone could make a device to squeeze the water/urine out of nappies to make them lighter.
Or just have a dedicated mop wringer bucket in the back garden to squeeze the excess water out of the nappies.



Mop Wringer