Recycling in Stourbridge - why it's hell going to the tip

I was sat in the queue for the tip recently (sorry, "household waste recycling centre" or "civic amentity site" in local authority parlance), the queue was right back up to Birmingham Street, as Summer approaches it will only get worse and in the past I have even seen it backing up to the ring road. Sat there in my car, the boot full of stuff that can only be recycled at the tip, I couldn't bear the thought of taking it all back so I just had to wait. I had a half hour wait in front of me and plenty of time to think, is it this bad everywhere, or is Stourbridge worse than most? I decided that when I got home I would try and find out.

When I got back I did some searches on the web for anything that related to guidelines for the provision of civic amenity sites by local authorities and after much searching I finally found something. (Article now removed) The report clearly states what I had been looking for, that local authorities should provide 1 CA site per 100,000 people in their area. Take a look at the chart on page 8, it reveals the reason for the problem, Dudley MBC provides just one site for 305,000 people - one tip for the entire Dudley Borough, when we should have at least three! However it does appear that Dudley MBC have come to some arrangement with Wolverhampton CC for residents in the north of the borough, but Stourbridge remains a huge problem for the rest of us. Elsewhere in the report it is suggested that local authorities provide as many as 6 CA sites for residents. I emailed Eric just to make sure I got my facts right, here's his reply:

"Thank you for your query. The average of around 6 CA sites per local authority is not really a useful measure, as local authorities vary vastly in terms of size and population. A better measure is the number of sites per 100,000 inhabitants, which is really a measure of how many sites are provided in terms of the population that they are expected to serve. According to the NACAS report, this figure for Dudley is 0.33, one of the lowest for any local authority in England. This is lower even than in Greater London, so you certainly have a point, the site in Dudley is very busy (I visited it a few years ago), and if they had the money it would be great if they could open another site."

As if that wasn't bad enough, some years ago Dudley MBC closed an established CA site at Mucklows Hill in Halesowen. No doubt they will say it was a financial decision. Additionally, Dudley MBC are suggesting people park on the Birmingham Street car parks now that the Bell Street car park has gone due to the Tesco development. This is proving to be an absolute nightmare for people as they get caught up in the queue for the tip, right next to these car parks. So all in all, it's pretty shambolic, and it's only a matter of time before the queues cause an accident on the ring road. Also, by making it harder to recycle responsibly, is the council the architect of it's own fly tipping problem across the borough?

If Dudley MBC would like to respond to my findings I will publish their response.

24th May 2012 - Please see the response from Councillor Tracy Wood, cabinet member for environment and culture below:

"The council recognises that at peak periods such as weekends over the spring and summer period and bank holiday weekends, the site can get very busy. We have established an arrangement with Wolverhampton City Council which allows residents in the north of the borough to use the Coseley site in addition to the Stourbridge facility.

We are always working with contractors to improve traffic flow through the site but would also remind residents of 60 additional recycling centres, including four recycling super-sites situated across the borough in addition to the Stourbridge facility.

The super-sites, which are bigger than standard sites and include a facility to recycle tetra pak cartons, paper, cans and glass, are situated at Morrisons in Kingswinford, Co-Op in High Holborn in Sedgley, Birmingham Street in Halesowen and Tesco’s Burnt Tree Island in Dudley.

In addition we offer fortnightly recycling collections of green waste, paper, cans and glass and we are looking to roll out plastic and card recycling collections following a successful pilot."

One final point stourbridge.com would like to make, we suggested years ago that installing a webcam at the site so users can see the length of the queue would be a good idea, and we believe that more than ever now. Users could log on to see what the length of the queue is at any point in time, load the car up and get down there on the odd occasion it is quiet!