Greenstar vs Panda

MoominPapa

Living in Dun Laoghaire Rathdown and have recently had both Greenstar and Panda touting for my business.
Greenstar are 30% less than the council on standing charge, lift and weight, Panda are 20% less.
However from september panda will take glass in the green bin whereas greenstar have a glass bin and charge 5euro a lift
I go through a fair bit of glass but I can't imagine that pandas free glass collection would make up the 10% difference.
So I reckon its down to reliability, anyone with experiance of either or both? Am I likely to be left with stinking bins for weeks on end with one or should I not be worried and just look at the savings? I have plenty of space for three bins but I would be one of the few on my road to have the space, if I was the only greenstar customer on my road might they "forget" to collect my bins every now and then?

ro23

I'm with greenstar and their customer care isn't good.
Don't try and ring them up because they take ages to answer their phones and you get passed from one person to the other.

Sonnenblumen

Rubbish:D

MoominPapa

ro23 wrote:

I'm with greenstar and their customer care isn't good.
Don't try and ring them up because they take ages to answer their phones and you get passed from one person to the other.

Thats almost a given in this day and age for any business but are they reliable at collecting the bins?

sean222

i switched to panda about 6 months ago. they've been better than good. i've heard too that they're way ahead environmentally - they they actually process the black bin rubbish. have friends in wicklow who've nothing good to say about greenstar. i'm staying put:)

MoominPapa

Hmm, two first time poster telling me not to go with greenstar, thanks for the interest guys, anyone with say 20+ posts got any opinions on this?

Rebeller

MoominPapa wrote:

Hmm, two first time poster telling me not to go with greenstar, thanks for the interest guys, anyone with say 20+ posts got any opinions on this?

I'm based in Cork and have been using Greenstar here for the past 3 months. My experience:

- called out to their Cork operations/waste centre to see what the setup was like (i.e. to see whether they were a professional waste recycling business or another cowboy dump it all in the ground outfit). I was impressed by their setup. However, I did find the office staff there a small bit clueless (although eager to help)

- bins have always been collected on dates specified (although never any earlier than 2pm even though they advise leaving bins out no later than 7:30a.m.)

- Overall they seem to provide (in the 3 months I've been using them at least) a professional, efficient, (somewhat) reasonably priced service.

From my own experience I would recommend them.

NOTE: I'm based in Cork and have no experience of their Dublin service

MoominPapa

Thanks Rebeller, have you got a glass bin and if so how often do they collect it and how big is it?

Rebeller

MoominPapa wrote:

Thanks Rebeller, have you got a glass bin and if so how often do they collect it and how big is it?

You're welcome:D

They supplied a 140litre bin for glass (it's about half the size of standard wheelie bins) which is collected once a month. We go through a fair amount of jars, bottles etc and still find a once monthly collection more than adequate.

It's certainly better than having to drag the whole lot to the nearest bottle bank only to bring it all home again because the bank hasn't been emptied in weeks!

MoominPapa

In an Alan Sugar-esque shock last minute turn of events I have decide to go with Panda for a number of reasons

1. They're Irish and have been established in the area for some time with few/no complaints and respond to the competition
2. They seem to be the most committed to the recycling ethos
3. They will be taking glass in the green bin ( I can do without another bleedin bin taking up space)
4. The charming aging hippie they sent to drum up business
5. Pandas are sooo cute