To Braintree District Council,

We, the undersigned residents of the Braintree District, formally petition the Council to urgently increase the frequency of our waste and recycling collections. This matter must be addressed immediately as a matter of critical urgency. It is entirely inappropriate for the Council to ask residents to "wait and see how it goes" while our streets and properties face worsening sanitary conditions.

While we support environmental sustainability, the current schedule—specifically collecting individual recycling streams only once a month and cutting general waste collections to every three weeks—is entirely insufficient and unmanageable for families and larger households. [1]

Furthermore, the new wheelie bins provided are made of poor quality, low-grade plastic, featuring lightweight lids that lack the necessary weight to secure down properly. Because these flimsy lids do not stay shut or form a secure seal, blowflies easily enter the bins. Combined with the long waiting times between collections, this has caused a severe surge in bluebottles and unhygienic maggot infestations across our neighbourhoods. [1]

The current system has directly resulted in:

Inadequate Recycling Capacity: A monthly collection frequency for individual recycling streams is completely inadequate for families. Bins become full after just one week, forcing residents to put recyclable items into the general waste (grey) bins instead. This directly defeats the purpose of the scheme and leads to less overall recycling. [1]
Severe Public Health Risks: Because the low-quality, lightweight bin lids fail to seal tightly, sitting waste attracts intense fly infestations and maggot outbreaks during the weeks between collections. Even when residents thoroughly rinse out their plastics before recycling them, the trapped moisture and trace residue still attract flies into the unsealed bins, making infestations impossible to prevent. [1]
Failure to Deliver Funded Services: Residents pay their Council Tax with the expectation that essential waste management services will be fully and effectively carried out. Telling residents to drive overflow waste to the local tip is not a solution; many households do not have access to a car, and we should not have to transport our own garbage when we are paying the council to remove it. The council is failing to do its basic job. [1]
An Overstretched Workforce: The council has doubled the number of bins and complicated the sorting process without expanding the workforce. You cannot increase the physical number of bins without increasing the number of bin men to collect them, leading to missed days and operational strain.
Our Demands:

We call upon Braintree District Council to immediately implement the following actions:

Increase the collection frequency of recycling or return to the mixed plastic sacks system. The solution is not to give families more wheelie bins, which they do not have the physical space to store on their properties.
Increase the frequency of the residual grey bins back to a maximum of a fortnightly schedule to protect public health.
Expand the waste collection workforce and vehicle fleet to properly handle the increased physical workload and ensure a reliable service.