Will new garden waste bin scheme brown people off?

Is it just a week since our local papers reported that in the first days of going “live” just 37 people had paid in full and a mere 203 had expressed an interest in the new brown bin system for collecting garden waste?

It surely is.
So it came as something of a surprise to learn that by last Friday - when Boston Borough Council’s “good news” bulletin arrived in our inbox - the brown bin scheme was proving so  hugely popular with borough residents that around 2,000 had signed up, paid up and registered their  interest in the first few days.
Whether or not they did all three of these things at once,  or only some of them is unclear – but pro rata it puts the thirst for brown wheelie bins in Boston in a similar perspective to that for tickets to the Olympic Game across the nation.
All in all, we felt that this figure was perhaps on the optimistic side – perhaps designed pour encourager les autres -  because the bin business seems to have got off to a slightly shaky start.
Initially, people were invited merely to express "an interest" in the scheme.
Then someone clearly calculated that this would mean extra administration, and therefore extra cost, and so the option was withdrawn – but apparently without telling the punters.
This resulted in visitors to Worst Street handing in coupons from the local papers expressing an interest being told to pay up there and then – which came as an unpleasant surprise for some.
Of course, it is possible to do this job over the telephone – which is how we bought our bin.
But again, it seems that depending on whom you talk to – and where – can make quite a difference.
One reader told us that the member of staff that he spoke to declared that at this stage, the borough had no bins to sell, and wouldn’t be ordering any until at least 12,000 had been bought and paid for by the public.
Asked why this was, he said the borough didn’t have the money to buy bins up front.
But it also begs the question … if fewer than 12,000 bins are ordered, will the scheme still go ahead?
And if not, what is the fallback position as far as collecting green waste is concerned?
Our ordering experience was slightly better.
Details were promptly and politely taken – but the only question that could not be answered was when - and how - the bins will be delivered.
They will be brand new -  and the owner’s responsibility -  so it is to be hoped that they will not simply be dumped without some prior warning.
Our money was promptly taken –  because we were told that delivery could not take place unless it was ... even though we are now told that it will be “in time” for when the service starts in July.
This means that for two months,  Boston Borough Council will accumulate and have at its disposal hundreds of thousands of pounds in advance payments.
As usual, we expect to be accused of gloom-mongering when we question aspects of all this.
Once the brown bin scheme is underway we may longer dump garden rubbish in our green bins as before – and the Saturday morning vehicle collections around the borough will cease.
Yet, according to the council’s own figures, enthusiasm for buying a brown bin is not overwhelming.
After last year’s pilot scheme at 10,000 of the borough’s 26,000 homes a survey showed that 57% of residents who responded would be unwilling to pay £20 for a garden waste  bin – but this being Boston, that was the scheme our leaders plumped for.
If that level of opposition has remained unchanged, we foresee a lot of unhappiness which could make the project even harder to deliver.
However, the irrepressibly optimistic Boston Bulletin has a spin for all seasons – especially the growing one.
The benefits of the new brown bins, it declares, include “no more unsightly
heaps festering away in your garden, no more dirtying up the car as you load it for
another trip to the tip.”
If memory serves us well those unsightly mounds are called compost heaps – which we are forever being encouraged to create.
And those endless trips to the tip which are now so roundly criticised, were once promoted as nothing more than a short ride to an easy-to-use facility that was open for our convenience seven days a week.
How times change!

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