Fife businessman suggests putting unslightly waste bins under streets

Eric Milne, co-director of bakery business Fisher & Donaldson, wants Fife Council and BID St Andrews to look at putting the commercial waste bins underground.

It’s an idea he’s picked up from Liverpool City Council, which has launched an underground revolution to tackle the age-old problem of refuse and litter on its streets.

Liverpool recently unveiled its first subterranean super-bins in a £1.5m programme that aims to end a rubbish issue for huge swathes of the city.

Mr Milne would like to see the idea considered up here, describing the current situation with bins and rubbish on the streets as “horrendous”.

He said: “When we rebuilt our bakery in St Andrews years ago, it was a stipulation that you had to have somewhere to store your bins off the street.

“Now it's a dirty free for all on the streets and needs to be sorted out as it's a disgrace. No one is enforcing the old rules.”

Mr Milne suggested that if investment could be found for St Andrews, this would be the best use of the money.

While the initial costs of putting such a programme in place might be seen by some as prohibitive, Liverpool City Council believes there are many long-term benefits.

As well as improving the appearance of its streets, it is expected to reduce the issue of waste spilling from bins and ripped black bin bags, which currently require extra clean-up resources to be deployed.

The super-bin scheme will also save the council a huge amount of time and resources in the years to come by drastically cutting secondary waste-related issues such as rats, flies and smells associated with waste disposal.

Joanne Anderson, Mayor of Liverpool, said: “I want Liverpool to be a zero-waste city and to achieve that we need to be smarter in how we enable people to dispose of what they generate in their homes.

“These subterranean super-bins are going to make a huge difference to the quality of life for thousands of families across huge swathes of our inner-city neighbourhoods.”