Dublin City Council - Bin Collection Privatised/Greyhound Megathread

Does anyone know whether any government or local council body is responsible for the regulation of operators ?

When I have paid up-front charges and my bin has not been collected, it is not simply a matter of switching to a new operator - what if my old operator (guess - yes - its Greyhound) refuses to refund money on account?

I've paid Greyhound up to 16th ish of January 2013 annual fee - my current balance is 15 euro - if my balance goes under 5 euro will they pick up my green bin or does there have to be s minim amount on the account?

Not at all just going to change suppliers in the new year and know that I have enough credit in the account for two more lifts 1 brown 1 black just wondering about over the Christmas will the green bins be collected with little or no credit in the account. You're a little cheeky devil btw.

deelite wrote: »

You're a little cheeky devil btw.

:pac: Just Kidding. I have to check what credit we have, as we're switching to Oxigen. It's cheaper and Greyhound are just too dirty and greedy for my liking. I posted the following on the thread I created, but thought it would also sit here comfortably.


I received a letter today from Terence Flanagan TD (FG) with a response from Greyhound Recycling regarding my complaint. I have responded to Terence, thanking him, but the Greyhound reply is less than satisfactory. I have pasted the whole email below, omitting only my name. The Greyhound response has been split into single line statements and is in bold font. The opening and closing formalities were not included, as they were not relevant to the subject. Email reply to follow:


Dear Terence,


First of all, let me thank you for making contact with Greyhound Recycling on my behalf. You should know that I contacted Tommy Broughan (Labour) a day or so after contacting you. However, you were the first public figure I contacted and you responded, where the other TD did not, so I appreciate that a great deal. I did also contact Minister Hogan, but I only received a reply from his office to acknowledge receipt of my email and have received no reply since then. Cllr Brabazon was also recently informed and has sent a letter response with interest in dealing with the matter in a public way. I have expressed interest, if necessary in speaking with the media about this issue, as it has received little attention when time is short. I would prefer I did not have to go down this route, because I would like to see the matter being dealt with properly, without the media being brought into it.


I received your letter with the Greyhound Recycling Response this morning. It is, quite frankly, a pathetic blow off response from Greyhound Recycling, with nothing being answered and much being lied about. I will cover the response, line by line, followed by my thoughts on them. I have excluded the opening greeting, as it is not material to the response.


"The options offered are relating to the usage of the bins."

It is a bin company. I did not think they were offering food delivery plans, or selling health insurance. However, this is one of only two factually correct statements.


"Each bin has a unique microchip that feeds back to our server."

This is the second correct statement, but it fails to mention that many areas and households have not been monitored by weight up to now, because many of their fleet are not equipped with the necessary hardware to take weight measurements (according to Greyhound source) and pass them along to the server. It is also not possible, or practical for people to weigh their own bins, so how are people to know if Greyhound Recycling are being honest without independent checks being carried out? If people do weigh their own bins, Greyhound still have the final say and there is nothing the customer can do about it if they disagree. On a personal note, I often bring my own bin out and the weights always feel similar. I could not give you an accurate measurement from my duty of wheeling the bins to the front of the Garden, but I would say the average weight would be 60-70kg, but according to greyhound, one bin was over 127kg. A mistake? Who knows? On the new system, I would be charged €6.50 for the first 25kg and €33.66 for the next 102kg, which is a total of €40.16 for that bin lift on the plan Greyhound recommended for me, based on their expert analysis. They also weigh by the half kilo, but they have not given any indication of how people would be charged for a half kilo. Will they be let off the 16.5cent? Will it be carried over? Will they be charged 16.5cent? Will they be charged for a full kilo?


"We believe that the selected plan is the best option for each customer."

Nonsense! This is total lies. If they believed the selected plans were the best plans for each customer, then wouldn't different customers have been placed on different plans? I have asked dozens of people about this and every single person has been placed on Plan 1, which Greyhound know is the biggest money maker for them. The vast majority of customers would go well above the restriced weights on a black bin. I would ask this question; Has any customer been placed onto any other plan without having to request it? I would doubt so. I think I will start a poll on this and report back.


"Customers have a range of different options to choose from within their plan and can make a different choice at any time throughout the year."

Customers do have different plans to choose from, but variety isn't a word I wuld use here. My household was offered 4 different Plans. My current end of year projection for domestic waste is costing just under €300. With the plan Greyhound Recycling recommended (PLAN 1) my annual spend would be in excess of €1000. This is not my figure. This was from the mouth of the first Greyhound representave I spoke to when I first rang about the .33c blunder, which hasn't been detailed in their response at all, very conveniently. I would not imagine it being easy for a customer being able to switch from certain plans throughout the year, but it's not a simple point to argue, so I will forego on that one.


"Different plans do no relate to different areas."

Untrue. As mentioned in my original letter; the good people of clongriffin, Dublin 13 seem to be getting their waste collected at nearly half the cost of those of us literally across the road. I know that a number of different price plans are being offered to different customers in different areas of Dublin. Greyhound denied this when last I spoke to them. The representative kept spouting different plans, saying I should choose the one-off €330, which would be very difficult for most of us at this time of year. The annual upfront fee for someone living in Grange Abbey is €330, or €29 per month (€348 annually). The annual upfront fee for someone living in clongriffin is €175, or €15 per month (€180 annually). As you know, these communities are side by side. I do not know if all of Grange Abbey, or all of Clongriffin are being charged the same plan fees for their area, as I have not checked every single addreess of course. However, I have attached proof, which a customer in Clongriffin has kindly posted on a public forum for all to see, at my request. So, to say that prices, or plans are not related to areas is a complete lie. The first file is the cover letter with the name and address of the customer partially removed for privacy. The second file contains an image of the prices greyhound are charging that customer.


"The new choices that are being introduced include prices by weight."

These prices are misleadng and/or completely wrong. A price of .33c (one third of one cent) sits comfortably with 2012 prices after the 50cent reduction is black bin lifts. Customers would actually make a tiny saving in most cases. However, Greyhound insist that the price is actually 33cent per extra kilo, which adds several euros to the average black bin. I wonder if Greyhound could provide the average black bin weight for Dublin, or even just for my area, Grange Abbey? Based on Plan 1: If the average black bin was only 50 kilos in weight (a very conservative figure i'm sure you'll agree) then the cost for the first 25kg is €6.50 and the added cost would be €8.25, a total of €14.75.


The black bin is lifted 30 times per year (as far as I know, but i'm open to correction). Completely ignoring brown bin lifts; if the black bin is lifted 30 times per year and the weight of each bin is 50 kilos, the total annual cost, including the €59.95 upfront fee on Plan 1 is €502.45. With the weight only plan, it is €495 with no upfront fee added. That's on a very conservatively low average bin and excludes the brown bin altogether.


Greyhound have still not responded to the .33c price error. I have twice requested to speak to a supervisor. On the first occasion, the supervisor was "away in Dublin for the day". The second time, the supervisor was "at a meeting and would call me right back". One representative already said that the price was an error and that the letters should not have been sent out. I named that representative in the online forum I referred to you and I named the missing supervisor too. Unless something is done, there will be uproar next year about this. I wouldn't be surprised if the army had to be called in again to collect the bins from customers who can't, or won't pay extortionate and misleading rates, cleverly disguised in errors and half-truths, with a core of lies. If they are aiming to help customers save money, I would ask how much extra they are forecasting to raise from the average household? The response from Greyhound is total Garbage and does nothing to answer my questions. I will be taking action to alert the public in a bigger way if necessary. I will be changing to a different provider, but most people don't know the truth.


Best Regards,


Snip My Name

Just signed up for City Bin and they have two stipulations. Firstly as mentioned before you'll be charged extra if your grey bins are more than 500Kg per annum. you'll also be charged if an individual bin is greater than 50Kg (15.6p/kg). They state most bins are less than 20Kg.

eboarde

nudger wrote: »

I was told that in the €99 deal that the weight issue was not for the first year, that it only kicked in in the second year when it goes up to €15 a month.

Edit: just checked the site and there are no weight restrictions for the first year.

Thanks Nudger, I read the site incorrectly

First post -
Screw Greyhound, screw Dublin City Council, screw this mess.

I live in a part of dublin that unfortunately uses bags. Ever since, Greyhound took over their has been non-stop problems, I'm sure most of which has been covered on the other 54 pages.

But to the reason for this post, I am outraged by the introduction of fees for recycling. Greyhound's reasoning for the introduction of fees was the 'high cost of delivering the bags' and 'sharp fall in market value of recyclables'.

The second part is what disturbs me most, Greyhound is acknowledging the fact that recycling is not altruistic for them because they profit from the sale of your recyclables to recycling plants. Assuming they are honest, the market value has fallen meaning that the profit they had been generating from their recycling collection has dropped, but instead of trying to find other ways to improve their business model, they have chosen the easy way of passing the cost onto consumers.

This plan is sure to backfire possibly not on Greyhound because their new fees are almost sure to yield greater profits, but on Ireland itself and anyone who is interested in an environmentally-friendly agenda.

Take a person like myself whose sole motivation to begin recycling was because it was a free way to dispose of some of my rubbish. That incentive lead me to recycle everything suitable for it.

But I have not forgotten why I started recycling, and once you remove that incentive from me that you previously used to change my behavior, my behavior will almost certainly revert back to it's original state.

And this is a no-brainer for me, any excess capacity I have in my regular rubbish bags will now be used for recycling and given how light and malleable pretty much all recycling material is I don't believe I'll have any problem combining the two.

The cost difference to me is zero. The impact to the environment is a negative.

Do I think I or anyone else who does similar should guilty? No, not in the slightest, the same people who introduced the scheme for recycling for the greater good, are the same people who failed to safeguard it for the greater good.

This also raises a question of entitlement - do I expect to be rewarded for doing the right thing and recycling? No, but in the same breathe I don't expect to be punished for it either and given the alternative of disposing of my recycling with my regular rubbish it is a negative and thus my action.

i would love to change provider! Could you advise me how to do this? Unfortunately i live in an area where we cant have a wheelie bin, so bag collection is my only option. I also dont own a car so cant drop it off anywhere. I looked online but cant find any alternatives. As usual the city council website doesnt offer any useful information about this.
According to their statement they have to charge for the bags because the cost for retail is too high. I havent received a greyhound bag in almost a year now. How could they possibly unable to pay for a service they dont provide? They also have dumped tons of waste illegally in farms. They need to be sued immediately, disowned and taken under the states control again. bunch of mafiosi!

Does anyone know the answers to three questions:

What are the terms of any agreements/contracts between DCC and Greyhound?
Is the attempt to impose separate charges for recycling compliant with these?
Can a waste collection/disposal license (or whatever it is called) be revoked?

Marmit3 wrote: »

i would love to change provider! Could you advise me how to do this? Unfortunately i live in an area where we cant have a wheelie bin, so bag collection is my only option. I also dont own a car so cant drop it off anywhere. I looked online but cant find any alternatives. As usual the city council website doesnt offer any useful information about this.
According to their statement they have to charge for the bags because the cost for retail is too high. I havent received a greyhound bag in almost a year now. How could they possibly unable to pay for a service they dont provide? They also have dumped tons of waste illegally in farms. They need to be sued immediately, disowned and taken under the states control again. bunch of mafiosi!

Hi I just spoke to the guy in abbey waste, €3 a sticker for black bags, register your address online, stickers can be bought online or from spar on Camden street, and rubbish is collected after 9am Fridays

Also asked about recycling he said there will be a charge coming in but at the moment if you register with them after a few pick UPS they will send out some free recycling bags...

I've been procrastinating about switching for ages, this has given me the push I needed

On a side note.. I am thinking of removing as much of the packaging as possible from my shopping at the supermarket. Leave it in their bins!