Central Scotland List MSP Jamie Hepburn has written to North Lanarkshire Council with the responses to a survey he sent to 3800 homes in Blackwood, Condorrat, Seafar, Westfield and Whitelees and also on via the internet.

Of those who responded, 95 per cent said they were happy with the old system, while 82 per cent said they were against the switch to alternate weekly collections. Some indicated that they had been experiencing problems such as bad smells and sightings of rats in bin areas.

Mr Hepburn said: "The results of this survey should serve us a wake-up call to North Lanarkshire's Labour Councillors who thought they could ride rough-shod over local opinion on fortnightly uplift.

"I have consistently said that the decision was more about saving money than saving the planet, and this survey confirms that people in the local area share my views.

"If North Lanarkshire Council was serious about improving recycling rates, they would not have introduced this system without sufficient blue bins. Other councils in Scotland have successfully boosted recycling rates without resorting to fortnightly collections.

"Eighty-two per cent of respondents to my survey oppose the decision by North Lanarkshire's Labour Councillors to introduce fortnightly household waste collections. It is clearly time for them to revisit this decision."

Kenneth Wilson, head of Land Services at NLC, dismissed Mr Hepburn's findings, claiming the survey covered a tiny minority of local households and had been designed to elicit an unfavourable response.

He said: "There more than 33,000 households in the North Area now on the new collection scheme. The responses to Mr Hepburn's survey, while perfectly valid in themselves, represented the views of less than two percent of those households.

"In contrast, Northline, our contact centre, takes thousands of calls relating to the scheme every week. It reports minimal complaints. Councillors are also reporting very few, if any, complaints.
Presentation rates are extremely high, contamination rates extremely low. We have already increased the amount of waste we recycle from around 90 tonnes to more than 560 tonnes per week - a 522% increase.

"Our own research, which has been conducted through face-to-face consultation with community representatives and through roadshow events at which our officers spoke directly with residents, indicates that the new scheme has been accepted and is being well utilised.

"The council has previously made its position on this survey very clear. We believe it was deliberately designed to elicit a specific response. We also believe that response would have been very different had the contents of the survey actually explained the new scheme, as it has been our experience that once people understood the proposals, they were far more inclined to accept them.

"I appreciate Mr Hepburn's concerns for his constituents. However I do not believe this survey represents the general public view, or provides adequate evidence of general public concern to justify rethinking a scheme which has, overall, been extremely well-received."