He had taken around 350 phone calls by Thursday afternoon, with around 60 people calling into the office in person.
“Most are after some clarification,” he said. “They aren’t sure what night to put what bag out, or when it will be collected. Some have called to say their rubbish hasn’t been collected and a few little glitches like that. It’s teething problems and we were bound to get them.”
Pictured: Deputy Paul Le Pelley is parish Constable for St Sampson.
He said those teething problems need to be addressed, including the issue of noise surrounding the glass collections but he said he doesn’t think that will be as much of a problem going forward as it had been earlier this week.
“We do appreciate that some people received their recycling kits some weeks ago so they may have been stockpiling their glass throughout the summer so they would have had a lot to put out this week.”
Deputy Le Pelley said generally most people seem willing to give the new scheme a try and he said we should all give it a chance to work. He said just one person who had called into the Douzaine office in person had been angry about the situation, asking why they can’t put all of their rubbish into a black bag and have it collected every week.
“I explained it’s in everyone’s best interests to recycle as society benefits. The more we can recycle, it will save us exporting our rubbish to Europe.”
States Trading Assets – the body implementing the strategy – has initially reported the changes have gone “relatively smoothly, thanks to the hard work of everyone involved and the participation of islanders.”
Its Deputy Managing Director Richard Evans also said the launch of the new system had gone quite well, particularly considering the size of the operation, and also reflected many of Deputy Le Pelley’s comments. His current plan is to allow the system to “cycle through” for a few weeks to really see how it was going.
“We are busy answering calls and questions from the public, but we have already noticed a lot of clear bags out – more than previously,” he said.
“So there does appear to have been an increase in the amount of recycling being done by people, which is great news. We have already collected 9,000 tonnes of food waste.”
Pictured: The black food caddy issued by the States. Mr Evans said if any of the items they had issued went missing, they would be able to supply replacements to people.
Following the hundreds of phone calls taken by Deputy Le Pelley, the States, and other douzaines around the island, they are now seeking to clear some areas of concern for the public up.
Deputy Le Pelley said one of those included queries over a second waste lorry having to go around the parish. He said that’s because one has been collecting glass and the second was picking up the food waste as they can’t go in the same truck.
He also said there has been concerns raised about the black food caddys being missed by the rubbish collectors because they can’t be seen in the dark.
Overall, Deputy Le Pelley would like his parishioners to “suck it and see and see how it goes. I’m not wanting to be quick to criticise.”
“Hopefully it will work,” he said, “hopefully by January, if people are being clever and recycling enough then they will only need to put out one black bag every six weeks or so.”
Also looking forwards, Mr Evans said the team at Guernsey Waste had worked closely with the parishes and their contractors over several months preparing for the changeover. Although some initial issues were always envisaged, the new services were now up and running successfully as a result of this combined effort.
“This is probably the biggest change to household waste collections in more than half a century, and it impacts everyone in some way. There has been an enormous amount of effort leading up to the start, but obviously the first two weeks were always going to be the main challenge. So far so good.
“It is anecdotal at this stage, but the feedback from the contractors is we are having a very good initial uptake on the food waste collection, plus we are seeing a big increase in clear bag recycling. That is really positive.”
Many people took to social media to complain about the noise of the late-night glass collections in the first few days of the system’s implementation.
Guernsey Waste also said it is aware of the concerns regarding noise of the new glass collections, and Mr Evans said this is something that would be looked at.
“I apologise to anyone who has been disturbed, but we suspect what people have experienced so far is the worst it is ever going to be. That is because a lot of households have held on to glass recycling in recent weeks, knowing the new service was about to begin. So this is probably a bumper week, in terms of the amount we are picking up.
“The collection contractors are also having to feel their way a little, because this is entirelynew to them as well. There are some things which they may be able to do differently, that will help reduce the noise.”
Glass is being collected in St Peter Port and St Sampson’s this week, but other parishes will have their first pick up next week.
“That is important, because most contractors have not had any experience of glass collection yet. That will be next week, and after that we can have a look at where the problem areas and what we can do.
“We ran a nine-month trial of glass collection in St Peter Port in 2015, and during that time had very few noise complaints. So we were surprised with the feedback we got from a survey after the trial, from participants and their neighbours. Nearly half said they had been disturbed at some point, but it did not put them having the service.
“Evidently, from the experience so far, it is a popular service, but we’ve got some work to do to improve it.”
Mr Evans did add they had only had around 15 actual complaints regarding the noise.