Councillor's video to defend £30m wheelie bin scheme for Birmingham

The man behind plans to bring wheelie bins to Birmingham has released a video defending the scheme after a public backlash to the proposals.

City bins chief, councillor James McKay (Lab, Harborne) said the £30 million plan would achieve the ‘key goal’ for people in Birmingham by preserving weekly collections.

In the three-minute interview he explained why and how the system would work in a bid to win over residents who have rejected wheelie bin plans.

There has been calls for the cash, won from the government’s £250 million weekly collection fund, to be used on other under-threat services.

Coun McKay said: “By introducing wheelie bins Birmingham is not doing something radical and strange, we’re just coming into line with what the vast majority of councils across the country do and have been doing for years.

“The reason they do it is that it’s a sensible way, a cost efficient way, a good way of collecting our waste.

“The system we’ve got at the moment, every working day a fifth of our city is stacked up with bin bags.

“That looks unsightly, the bin bags get ripped open and the waste gets strewn across the streets.

“That’s a real problem for us to have to clean up and in the mean time residents have to put up with living in those sorts of streets and they don’t want to do that.

“We’re making this change to give people cleaner streets which we know they want.”

Outlining the plan, he said most residents would get three bins for residual waste, recycling of paper and cans, and one for garden waste.

But he added: “We recognise there are all sorts of family size, all sorts of household sizes and all sorts of different needs out there so this isn’t going to be a one size fits all.

“There’s a lot of flexibility in this system and that why we will be talking to people to understand exactly what people’s needs are and how to make this system work for Birmingham.”

Residents have been told the consultation over the plans, brought about after Birmingham secured £30 million of a £250 million government pot, that they will not get to choose if they have wheelie bins or not.

Instead they will be asked about how they want the wheelie bin system to work.

In the video Coun McKay insisted the scheme, to be rolled out in April, was achieving what most residents wanted.

“We’ve got £30 million, the largest slice of any local authority. What that is doing is delivering the key goal for people in Birmingham – we’re keeping their weekly bin collections.”