ASH Waste - small print

milo.harrisson

Hi All,

Wondering firstly if anyone else has had this problem, and any advice would be appreciated

We run a small cafe in Shrewsbury, Shropshire. Back in December we were having some problems with our bin providers, and were put onto Ash Waste, who are based up in Manchester, who our neighbours had just gone with.

When the rep came round she was adamant that their bins were the cheapest, not only this but they would sort the waste into recyclables, which up til then we had been doing. What she failed to mention is that the have a system by which they charge you if you go over your allocated weight. No where on the contract does it clearly state what the limit is in simple English, instead giving you a formulae to calculate your allowance. This is something like 55kg per cubic metre for general waste and 35kg per cubic metre for 'dry recyclables'.

When worked out this gives you an allowance of just over 30kg in a 360 litre wheelie bin, that clearly states on the top the maximum weight is 160kg!

Anything over the weight they charge at 16p per kg, when I spoke to them they just say its clearly stated in the contract, which I dont feel is true. They also tell me I am locked into a 3 year deal and it will cost me £700 plus to leave.

When reading the small print on the contract, just how dodgy they are starts to show. When you sign the contract your in the 'Initial Period', but it doesn't say anywhere how long this period is, although I assume its a year (mostly because a friend who works for another carrier told me it was), then to leave after the initial period you have to give them written notice 'no longer than 5 months or less than 3 months before the exact date or the end of the initial period' if that notice doesn't finish on the 'exact day' then you will be automatically rolled over into a 3 year contract.

Further to this, they are just pretty bad at their job. They regularly change the day of collection, never come at even close to the same time. twice they have missed the collection completely til the following week. These may seem like small points, but sometimes they come before we open, so we have to leave our bins out over night, Shrewsbury is awful for fly tipping, and the people from flats adjacent regularly put a lot of rubbish into my bin. When they missed the weeks completely we had the council on our backs.

All in all they seem to be a pretty terrible company, I was wondering if anyone else has had any problems?

Thanks in advance

Milo

paddyrg

Offer to buy yourself out of the contract for £offer?
Offer £less and let them sue you for the rest?
Sue them for the cost of getting another carrier to clear up their missed deliveries?

I don't think you've a lot of argument space with the pricing, the volumetric weight calculation does appear in the contract. The notice terms just need setting on your calendar. Pain, but not the world's end.

How about just calling your council who probably do a daily collection if you're in city centre, they may have a PAYG municipal bag rate?