What A Load Of Rubbish!

Rotting piles of decaying waste have been lining the streets of the East End in the second week of a month-long walkout by refuse collectors.

Residents, politicians and tourists urged Tower Hamlets council to urgently come to a deal with the striking workers as rotting food and discarded nappies lay in mounds up to 6f high on some roads.

Unite the Union members walked out on September 18 in a dispute over pay and conditions. It was originally scheduled to be a fortnight of industrial action, but when a deal couldn’t be struck, they extended the walkout until October 15.

On Tuesday morning Tower Hamlets town hall put a fresh deal to the union, which will be voted on.

Minister for London Paul Scully said the mess had to be cleaned up as soon as possible after residents reported rats swarming the piles of rubbish in the tourist hot spot of Shoreditch.

He told a newspaper outlet that the first thing people think about regarding council services is getting their bins emptied and that residents and visitors alike would be appalled and put off by the site of rubbish piling up on the streets.

He said that the unions and councils need to stay in the room together until a fair agreement is sorted. This wasn’t fair to people who pay their council tax and local businesses whose customers will start to go elsewhere.

A private waste collection service, Bywaters, was employed by the council to target the worst-hit areas following grave concerns over fire safety.

On Tuesday it was spotted cleaning up mounds of bin bags in bustling Brick Lane, the road famous for its many curry restaurants, bars and beigel shops.

Meanwhile, more than 200 refuse workers and supporters assembled in Blackwall near Canary Wharf station.

A strike by refuse workers in neighbouring Newham, which was scheduled to start, but was called off after the council came to a deal with Unite. It included the town hall reviewing night shift payments and offering full-time employment to agency staff.

Labour London Assembly member Unmesh Desai said a new deal was being put to Unite members by Tower Hamlets council.

He urged Tower Hamlet’s independent Mayor Lutfur Rahman to work with the strikers.

He said he condemned the council for failing to come to an agreement, for using private companies to try and break the strike and for leaving residents facing this level of health and fire risk with rubbish everywhere.

Tower Hamlets is a lovely prosperous place, especially Brick Lane and Petticoat Lane. However, since the refuse strike, it has become extremely smelly and repulsive as you walk along the streets of Tower Hamlets. You have to hold your breath as you walk along because the smell truly makes you feel sick.

There are heaps of rubbish all along the streets of Tower Hamlets. Stepney stinks like a sewer, and it will put a lot of eating businesses out of business if this carries on because, after all, who wants to go into a cafe or restaurant and then come out and smell all of this rubbish that hasn’t been collected?

As I wandered along I could see 6ft piles of rubbish that hadn’t been collected. Residential streets in Tower Hamlets were scattered with rubbish where the rubbish sacks had been torn open by vermin and all the rubbish was on the pavements.

The people pay their taxes to have their bins collected, and if they can’t come to an agreement on what they want, then the council tax that we pay for this service should be adjusted and we should be given some money back because the people pay for a service that evidently they’re not getting, and if you’re not getting the service, why should you have to pay for it?