I live in S10. We were issued with paper recycling bins, I would say, about a year or so ago. The past 3 months, they are emptied monthly, the collectors have not arrived. Each time I have rang ONYX contact phone number and enquired why. Each time I was told the same excuse. The round had finished.

I contacted them and asked the next collection date. ONYX sent me a coleection calender I could stick on my bin. The first date of collection was yesterday, and yes, you have guessed it, the bin was not emptied. I had left it in the correct place for collection.

I must admit, when I arrived home and it had not been emptied, I contacted ONYX and complained quite forcefully.
The contact on the other end really, I felt, was so used to complaints, it was like the proverbable water and duck's back.

I want to save paper, I want to help future generations, I want to recycle. It appears from my experience ONYX do not.

If a forum member from ONYX reads this maybe they could give me an explanation on 4 months of phone calls and no visits.

When the bluies first started Onyx were pretty good at picking them up. Once the calendar on the bins ran out and no one had the reminder of when to put them out, the number of bins in the road ready for collection plummeted. At that point Onyx seemed to stop caring about actually picking them up.
Our blue bin sits full for what seems like ages. I've given up sorting paper/card for it - all goes in the normal bin now.

Prob is, that when they are not collected they get knocked over, or are knocked over on purpose, and paper is distributed all over the place. Only recently I picked up a number of Christmas cards from my garden from a bin close by. You never see a road sweeper in S10 tidying up because ONYX have failed yet again to call.

Are you able to take your paper to a local recycling site instead?

Don't give up recycling just because ONYX have let you down.........

Loopy, I take to TESCO in Infirmary Road. Its the way ONYX have acted that, if you excuse the London saying, gets up my schonk

I live in S5 and so far havent had any probs with ONYX waste paper collections.If I forget to put the bin out I take my paper to Morrison's or Asda where they have recycling bins.

Ring the council. Although Onyx deal with the waste, the council still have government targets to make for recycling and the council can force Onyx to act (I say "can"). If Onyx don't perform the council should take this into account when the tender is up for renewal.

Have to say that in my area (S13) I've never had any problem, the bins are always emptied on the day they are scheduled (unless I forget to put them out of course)!

In fact, the only time they've missed was one of the days when the snow was pretty bad.

I think if I were in your position I would put something in writing. You've tried the simplest approach (phoning up) and as that hasn't worked you ought to make an official complaint.

As another poster said - the Council have targets to meet and should be making sure the contractors (ONYX) are doing the job they are contracted to do.

Good luck

I live in S3, and don't even have a blue bin. I still make an effort to recycle paper, glass and tins, but it's quite a walk to take them to the collection point.

Why is this such a problem in Sheffield? They seem to be so far behind many other parts of the country in terms of recycling.

I lived in somerset for a year, and we had a plastic crate for recycling that was collected every week, without fail. You could put in paper, plastic, tins, textiles, batteries... in fact pretty much everything except cardboard. A plastic crate (with a lid) was much better than a wheelie bin because it was smaller and could be kept inside or out, and it was black and green, not bright blue!

have you got the green recycle bins in sheffield yet that you put grass/hedge clippings & cardboard in and that are taken away for composting or are your council still stuck in the stoneage as regards recycling

We have had a green bin for garden waste for over a year now. There have been a few problems with collections late by a day, and with the blue bins when they started, but this is down to the weight that is being recycled. I asked why this should have occurred and was told that the volume of materials recycled exceeded all expectations and projections, way beyond those recycled in other towns and cities, and consequently the collection vehicles filled up much quicker than anticipated. The time lost in emptying meant that delays were inevitable. However, I understand that additional resources have been committed by Onyx to deal with the problem. As a previous poster stated, targets are set by central government and Onyx are contracted to deliver a service to set standards. If they are failing to meet collections, contact the council, or your councillor, as penalties can be imposed on Onyx.

Whereabouts in S10 are you?

I live in Crookes and have had no problem with blue bin collections - in fact on a couple of occasions I have forgotton to put the bin out and ONYX staff have collected it from my driveway.

In Worksop (was 2 years ago so may have changed), you could put glass, plastic and paper in the blue bin. This and your normal bin would be emptied on a two week rota, it was much better than Sheffield's recycling effort. Far more items were recycled and my normal bin had hardly any waste in it.

its the same in derbyshire we have a blue box for cans and bottles a blue bag for the paper a green bin for general garden waste and cardboard and a grey bin for household waste :thumbsup:. The binmen come round every week and empty the grey bin one week and the green bin the week after and the bottles cans and paper are picked up by a recycling company:thumbsup:

I never forget my bin. And its always emptied.

The older neighbours put theirs out religiously on the right day so I always have a reminder. And they bring it in for me if Im at work when they have been emptied.

Heh, Onyx wouldn't even give me a blue bin...

try living in apartments all that waste in a concentrated area that could be recycled, they don't seen to be interested

Originally posted by beckyaa
I live in S3, and don't even have a blue bin. I still make an effort to recycle paper, glass and tins, but it's quite a walk to take them to the collection point.

Where is the nearest collection point for S3? I spoke to our lettings office about the possibility of getting some kind of recycling point along with the other bins in the basement but it didn't go anywhere. I'd like to recycle my paper and stuff.

My sister lives in Doncaster and they have a collection of goods for recycling every fortnight. Houses in her area were issued with plastic boxes that they can fill with paper, glass, clean tin cans etc etc. These are then collected from the pavement outside her house - great system, although rather embarrassing since it's always exclusively filled with empty wine bottles and trashy magazines :P :D

This waste collection system is a farce. Basically, if it isn't actually in the bin they don't touch it.

We had a delivery of stuff that came in about 20 long, wide, flat boxes made of really thick 5mm cardboard. I flattened it all, put some string around it and neatly popped it behind the blue bin on collection day. I came back to find it all blowing around the street :mad:

I don't have a car big enough to move them and it would take years of blue bin collections to take them away a bit at a time.

I called Onyx and the Council and frankly they were nice but totally useless. The Onyx help line had no idea how I should shift them, but they were adamant that they were incapable of putting it into the back of a refuse lorry even though they are paid to do it, have targets to reach, and frankly NEED such waste.

Very, very odd! :loopy:

originally posted by Tony
I called Onyx and the Council and frankly they were nice but totally useless. The Onyx help line had no idea how I should shift them, but they were adamant that they were incapable of putting it into the back of a refuse lorry even though they are paid to do it, have targets to reach, and frankly NEED such waste.

Tony of you have this problem again telephone StreetForce and they will collect the rubbish. I have complained about this before it is absolutely stupid but this is what happens when you outsource services.

As for problems with recycling I would email your councillors(firstname.surname@sheffield.gov.uk) with a copy to Harry.Harpham@sheffield.gov.uk.

And to think that Sheffield used to be known as the 'Recycling City'.... how things change.

Originally posted by LoopyLou
Are you able to take your paper to a local recycling site instead?

Don't give up recycling just because ONYX have let you down.........

Why should i take my waste paper to recycle bins at the supermarket?

The council are not doing us a favour with the blue bins, we are paying for them through our taxes! All councils now have an obligation to recycle a percentage of waste and we are paying for this to be done, i'm not going to load up my car with rubbish to do their work for them.

When the R U M takes over things will be very different!

We were given a blue bin last year. I was so happy to have it (apart from the revolting colour). Our house is on a hill with steep pathways leading up to it. Therefore it made sense to have the bins down by the roadside. Our garage is on the roadside with a bit of our private ground in front of it, then the pavement then the road with cars parked half on the road and half on the pavement. The bin lived on our piece of land.....approx 3' from the actual roadside..................where it couldn't go because of parked cars. For the first 6 months of it's life it was collected more or less as Onyx had said on the calendar. Once the calendar had expired and was not replaced, Onyx decided to come as and when it suited them! I rang up and asked them why our blue bin had not been emptied for at least 2 months.....the reply was that Onyx were emptying the bins! I was asked where my bin was and I explained as above.
Ahhhhhhh she said..........it has to be on the kerb! I explained why this could not happen and also pointed out that they had been quite happy to collect it from where it was for the first 6 months......and that they had hardly been near the street since! The voice on the other end of the phone was clearly not in the least bit interested in my argument and in fact refused to listen to me. I was being told off big style by this Lady......so I suggested that if they couldn't be bothered to collect the very full bin, they may as well come and take it away! THEY DID JUST THAT.......within 48 hours! BUT...........my paper contents were left all over the ground! As far as I am concerned the only recycling that Onyx are interested in is in the form of used banknotes!

I don't think there's a problem with blue bins in our area, but I don't use mine on principle of the fact that recycling paper is more damaging to the environment than sustainable paper is. It's the bleaching process...

Besides, if so much of our rubbish is incinerated, surely it's plastics we should be eliminating from the general waste?

I wish I could put my plastics in the blue bin, but government targets don't take account of local exceptions such as incinerators and CHP schemes, so the council are forced to play the figure-massaging game, and because paper is denser than plastic, and contributes the greater tonnage, it's paper they collect separately :mad:

I recycle my plastics and glass the hard way :(

i recently called onyx up to collect large items from my garden, i was told i would have to pay for the privelage! £28 for ten items. when they came they decided the bag full that was there was too heavy and did not take it even though the guy on the phone said it wouldnt be a problem and also fact that the washing machine they took was much heavier!!!! what the hell am i paying council tax for???? , they do nothing! i must admit i have had no problems with my blue bin aprt from the local kids thinking its fun to run away with them.

Originally posted by Strix
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Besides, if so much of our rubbish is incinerated, surely it's plastics we should be eliminating from the general waste?

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Bit of a strange one with plastics - on incineration, plastics have a higher calorific content so release more energy back into the CHP scheme.
With regard to recycling targets, energy recovered through waste incineration is not classed as renewable energy in Britain although it is elsewhere in Europe.

Originally posted by bglodge
Bit of a strange one with plastics - on incineration, plastics have a higher calorific content so release more energy back into the CHP scheme.
With regard to recycling targets, energy recovered through waste incineration is not classed as renewable energy in Britain although it is elsewhere in Europe.

I knew the stats were flawed :roll: