Daily Mail 2nd September 2008
Thinner bin bags are being handed out to homeowners in the latest desperate cost-cutting measure by a local authority.
The plastic bags will be around five per cent slimmer than standard sacks.
Officials at Sevenoaks District Council, in Essex, blamed the move on the soaring cost of oil, which is used to make polymer-based products.
It says it is facing a £17,000 overspend on its refuse budget unless cuts were made.
Residents are furious after their local council slashed the thickness of its binbags to save money. File photo
But council tax campaigners and residents have complained that the new, flimsier bin bags are more likely to split, increasing the risk of rubbish blowing around streets and residents being fined for littering.
Mark Wallace, of the Taxpayers' Alliance, said: 'Councils are increasingly treating ordinary people like criminals if they put their rubbish out more than a few hours before it is due to be collected, do not entirely close their bins or put the wrong waste in bins.
'In that context, residents of Sevenoaks will rightly be worried that they are going to get fined because the council's new, flimsier bin bags break.
'Council tax has doubled over the last ten years and families struggling to pay those mounting bills should be able to expect that basic services won't be compromised.
'If council's want to save money they should cut back on the bureaucracy, work to get expensive local government pensions reformed or scrap costly publicity spending.'
Local pensioner Alf Morley, 71, said: 'I think it's a bit of a joke to be honest after all the tax I've paid.
'The least I expect is a proper bin bag. What on earth are they playing at?'
Mother-of-two Hilary O'Donnell, 41, added: 'If the binbags split the council will have hell to pay.
'It beggars belief that they are so hard up as to scrimp on binbags.
Sevenoaks Council delivers rolls of 20 black bags for general waste and 25 clear recycling sacks to all its 46,500 households every 20 weeks.
Extra bags are available at the council headquarters and from parish council offices.
These were reduced to 0.023 mm after contractors BPI Recycled Products said it
would need more money to supply standard sacks.
The Tory-run local authority is yet to introduce fortnightly wheelie bin schemes which have become popular with other councils across Britain.
Cllr Avril Hunter, who is responsible for refuse collections, said the switch was 'forced upon us'.
'The council has had a contract with BPI for years but they came to us and said they needed to charge us an additional £17,000 on top of the agreed figure because the price of oil had gone up,' she said.
'Obviously, we had to make a choice between paying the extra or getting an alternative and this is the decision we have made.
'The difference we are talking about is a hair's breadth. I will keep a careful eye on the situation and if there are any difficulties we will have to think again.
'Of course we are going to be monitoring the price of oil and if it goes down to the previous levels we expect to go back to the original thickness or a decrease in the current level of payment to the contractors.'
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