Galway traffic

Bin the Bin Trucks

Any merit in giving tenders to the various Bin Company's based on areas. Electoral Ward, or area like Salthill, Mervue etc.

Would cut down on multiple truck visits per estates/area, more efficient, safer roads as less HGV movements. Align more with the previous system we had when Council used to do it, but Private operators would have to bid for areas?

Ya ditto and this is occurring in every estate in the City, 3 different company's. That is 6 additional HGV truck movements per estate. Have 9 instead of 3 in an estate. Would also be big Diesel saving. Also less speeding if they were picking up outside of every house on every street in the estate

Probably most rural County areas probably only have 1? Not sure about the County towns?

That's how it might be sold politically, no GCRR but ya get equivalent spend on light rail. 700->1000 million

Only way it works is if the Local Authority are in charge of it - GCC would make a hames of it

Better to have everyone just drive their rubbish to the dump directly. Save us from the terror of more bikes on the street

TLDW:

Remove household collections. A household member must deliver their waste to a central collection point, which someone empties. In Amsterdam, these points are underground bins, emptied by the city.

Another FUOOD (f-you, old or disabled) idea, which ignores the fundamental public health issues behind household level fresh-water delivery and rubbish removal.

The proposal is continue to have bin trucks - just reduce the no of movements of them; reduce truck traffic, reduce the truck pollution, reduce speeding.

Would have to be at local authority's level. Currently we have 3 Waste Company's in the City, we have three City Wards.

One per ward perhaps.

Why are you lumping "fresh-water delivery" in with the idea?

Interesting concept. Ironically I know a lot of older people that bring their rubbish out to public bins already because they don't make much and can't afford the wheelie bin charges. It also seems easier to carry a small bag of rubbish to a bin than try and drag a big wheelie bin out of the house every week. I'm not aware of any wheelie bin that caters for people with impaired mobility. I don't even think you can get the smaller sized bins anymore.

Right now it would just be nice if they brought back more bottle banks and added some drop-off points for things like electrical waste. I've one older friend that doesn't drive and has to ask neighbors to bring her stuff to the bottle banks.

I am in favor of stopping this fresh-water delivery nonsense though. Tis just making us soft.

Ah no she wouldn't (but thanks for telling me what someone I know but you don't is capable of). She's out every day for prolonged periods of time so would have no problem carrying a small bag to a bin. Her problem with the bottles is she has to walk miles to the nearest bottle bank and they get heavy quickly so she can either make lots of long trips with a small number of bottles or make less trips with lots of heavy bottles. If they even just brought back the ones they got rid of all those years ago she'd be fine (something she has told me directly).

Where did you get this information about the population density being an issue? We're talking about a hypothetical situation here so it seems like you just deciding that based on it suiting your point. Obviously it wouldn't work if you were walking miles to every bin. We already have a situation where multiple companies make trips to every single house in the city every week. Building a fancy hole in the ground isn't the toughest engineering problem. We also already have elderly people that make daily trips to public bins with their rubbish (and these are fairly sparse already). And we already have a situation that requires the old and disabled to drag heavy bins to and from the street every week. I remember this being a big issue for my grandparents when it came in. They were lucky enough to not have steps to deal with and had family nearby to help.

Anyway, I think we've gone away from the topic Galway Traffic. I don't think bin collection is a major contributor but could be wrong. This does seem like a forward thinking approach to waste management though.

Every little bit helps though. For me its just un-necessary way of getting the bins collected. They are noisy machines as well - so less movements - less noise. Would rather have 3 v's than 9 HGV bin trucks reversing on my street every two weeks for starters. I think it will eventually come because it is more environmental friendly on many levels. Those bins in Amsterdam are smart, not sure suited for the Suburban area's of the City but the more built up areas of City Centre could work for sure.

I love the way the hypothetical negative impact on some of the elderly or disabled is rolled out so frequently these days as a fig leaf by those who want to object to something they personally oppose but prefer to cloak their reasons as something altruistic.

This example really takes the biscuit though. The system in the Netherlands benefits the elderly/disabled because:

1) they don't have to deal with their own heavy wheelie bins.

2) they don't have to deal with everyone else's heavy wheelie bins blocking the pavement.

3) if they find it physically difficult to bring their own rubbish to the communal disposal point, and they don't have neighbours/friends taking care of this for them, their local municipality is responsible for providing this assistance.

The Netherlands is way ahead of most other countries in actively working to make sure the elderly and those with disabilities can continue to live independently for as long as possible. This was a really poor example to plant your flag on.