What a load of rubbish! Reflections on rubbish & recycling in West Hampstead
Issues about rubbish & recycling are among the most frequently raised with the West Hampstead Lib Dem team on the doorstep or in my councillor inbox. Since I was elected in August last year, I’ve taken up complaints about:
- Bin collections being missed e.g. on Iverson Road and Gladys Road
- Bins being left on pavements meaning those in wheelchairs or with pushchairs have to go into the road, for example on Sumatra Road, Holmdale Road and Dennington Park Road
- Commercial waste being collected noisily at 5am on West End Lane
- Fly-tipping hot-spots, such as Lithos Road and Loveridge Road.
But the issue that most people raise with me is the rubbish on our high streets – including West End Lane, Finchley Road, and Kilburn High Road. Residents want to know – why are there bin bags all over our high streets?
Put simply, it’s the Labour Council’s policy that businesses, and residents who live in flats above shops, put their waste and recycling bags out on the street for collection.
Residents and businesses are supposed to use specific bags, and put them out at specified times of day for collection. For example on West End Lane, the windows are between 6.30am and 7am; between 4.30pm and 5pm; and between 9.30pm and 10pm. If all goes well, this means neat, labelled bags on the pavement for 30 minutes or so.
But lots of things can and do go wrong…
- Businesses are required to have a contract with a waste provider, but not all of them do. Businesses can use the Council’s waste provider Veolia, or they can use other ones such as Biffa or First Mile. However across Camden, 1/3rd of businesses don’t have a contract with a provider. This means they’ll dump their rubbish next to other bags or next to street bins, and hope it gets picked up.
- Business waste providers don’t all run to the same schedule. Veolia will collect business waste & recycling from contracted premises at the same time as they collect residential waste. The other providers are supposed to keep to the same schedule, but they don’t always do so – meaning bags on the street for hours.
- Veolia might be late due to traffic, or not have enough crews due to staff sickness. This means they’re late along the streets, or miss a collection. There are penalties in the contract that the Council has with Veolia, but as far as residents are concerned, there’s just rubbish on the street.
- Residents in flats above shops might not know the arrangements. Many flats above shops are rental properties where turnover is often high. Someone who has moved in from elsewhere might not know the arrangements here, and landlords don’t always provide up to date details.
- Residents might run out of the correct bags, and use black bags instead. Residents are supposed to use clear bags for recycling, and orange bags for waste. The clear bags can be ordered online, but the orange ones have to be ordered by phone during the working day, only making it harder to do the right thing. Moreover, black bin bags are thinner than the official bags, so more prone to being split open.
There’s another twist, which is that the Council’s own street-sweepers pile up their bags on the street. When their cart is full, or they empty an on-street bin, they put the green bags on the street for collection. There’s a Veolia truck that goes round and picks up these bags.
The challenge of all these “official bags” on the streets is that they just invite others (whether residents, visitors or fly-tippers) to leave their own bin bags, bits of household waste or litter on top of them, leading to messy piles of rubbish, all day every day.
What are the official statistics on all this?
A report to the Council's Environment Scrutiny Committee in December highlighted that, according to Keep Britain Tidy (KBT), litter, fly-posting, graffiiti and fly-tipping had all got worse during the last four years, with fly-tipping a particular problem.
KBT Street Cleansing Scres 2021-2025
| Year | Litter | Detritus | Fly-Posting | Graffiti | Fly-Tipping |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2021/22 | 4.5% | 5.5% | 3.5% | 11.7% | 3.2% |
| 2022/23 | 7.3% | 5.0% | 5.6% | 11.8% | 2.4% |
| 2023/24 | 5.7% | 1.7% | 5.8% | 12.2% | 4.5% |
| 2024/25 | 7.1% | 2.7% | 7.8% | 15.8% | 5.07% |
Camden’s recycling rate has fluctuated over the past four years, but the most recent years shows a fall in recycling rates from the previous year, and from 2021/2022.
| 2021/22 | 2022/23 | 2023/24 | 2024/25 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 28.2% | 27.5% | 29.1% | 27.7% |
What’s being done to address this?
The basic issue is that this “bags on the street” approach is baked into Veolia’s seven-year contract with the Labour Council, signed in 2024. But there are few things that have been tried over recent years to mitigate the issues:
- Following a successful trial in Belsize Village, West End Lane and Mill Lane now have “grit bins” for residents to put their orange waste bags in. These have taken some of the waste bags off the streets, but not residents’ recycling or any business waste or recycling.
- The Council put in an extra collection last April on West End Lane to reduce the impact of cafes shutting at 5pm and their waste sitting out until late into the evening.
- The Council has used “Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL)” funding to pay for an extra environmental enforcement officer in West Hampstead for the past couple of years. They contact businesses and residential properties who aren’t presenting their rubbish & recycling properly.
- From December 2025, landlords of houses in multiple occupation (HMOs) have to demonstrate that they’ve informed their tenants of how to dispose of waste and recycling, or lose their licence.
A lot of credit for these changes should go to organisations such as WHAT (West Hampstead Amenity & Transport) https://whatnw6.com/, which campaigns for cleaner streets, organises regular litter picks and keeps residents in touch.
What can residents do?
- Please report dumped rubbish, household goods etc on the The “Love Clean Streets” App https://lovecleanstreets.info/. Veolia are responsive to this and a little truck will come and pick it up within hours. Reports on this app are also the way in which the Council tracks its performance, so the more reports there are, the more they see there’s a problem!
- Join WHAT (details above) and campaign for change with other residents. The more of us who say we care about this, the better!
- Highlight particular trouble-spots to the council, for example via petitions and deputations to the Council or the local press. I can help with this if you’d like – get in touch on NW6libdems@gmail.com at any time.
What am I and the Camden Liberal Democrats doing?
- At a local level, I’m reporting fly-tips, and problem spots, day-in, day-out to council officers. I’ve also asked them to review the policy to make it easier for residents to order orange bags, to reduce the number of black bags on the streets.
- I’m pushing to get clearer performance reporting about the impact of the additional environmental enforcement officer. I know they work very hard, but there are no agreed outcomes for the role, so it’s hard to know the impact they’re making.
- Lib Dem councillors use formal scrutiny meetings to challenge Cabinet Members and officers on waste and recycling issues. I asked a question at the December meeting and got a very waffly answer!
- The Liberal Democrats are the main Opposition on Camden Council, and in last year’s Budget debate we proposed the Council should employ five extra environment enforcement officers, to really get a grip of the issue, but Labour councillors voted against this. We’ll put forward this amendment again this year!
Most importantly, we’ll continue to campaign for the Labour Council to change its “Bin Bags on the Street” policy. The Clean Streets App, the additional staff, the grit bins etc are all workarounds designed to mitigate the failing policy. Other boroughs, other cities and other countries do this differently – the Labour Council need to show a bit of imagination and get the bin bags off our street.
