NO ONE IS SPRING CLEANING - THIS IS THE BATTLE AGAINST COVID - Urgent request to Haringey Council for more bin collections and the redeployment of commercial waste bins to domestic use

  • By Brian Leveson
  • 25 Mar, 2020

We are concerned that additional service requirements for waste collection and disposal arising from people being instructed to stay at home and from cleaning generated to combat Covid-19 are not being fully considered by Haringey. 

To say I was alarmed to read the above 'update' on the Haringey Covid-19 web page yesterday (24th March 2020) would be an understatement.  So, my next step was to check out the World Health Organisation Guidance : Water, sanitation, hygiene, and waste management for the COVID-19 virus   Interim guidance 19 March 2020 

Water, sanitation, hygiene, and waste management for the COVID-19 virus Interim guidance 19 March 2020

Two relevant points being hygienic conditions are essential for the protection of human health and the virus can be transmitted through contact

I am concerned about the advice issued yesterday about not 'spring cleaning' and minimising waste when we are all at home and naturally creating more waste before we even start cleaning to hold back the Covid virus.   People are cleaning to manage the virus - and it is essential that people do so.

I have looked at the current WHO advice regarding faecal matter and how long the virus stays on surfaces and I also consider the religious angle of cleaning and cleanliness. 

No one is 'spring cleaning'! - and I hope no one is discouraged from cleaning in anyway

  1. WHO on faecal matter: Approximately 2−10% of cases of confirmed COVID-19 disease present with diarrhoea,2-4 and two studies detected COVID-19 viral RNA fragments in the faecal matter of COVID-19 patients.  However, only one study has cultured the COVID-19 virus from a single stool specimen.7 There have been no reports of faecal−oral transmission of the COVID-19 virus.
  2.  WHO on surface: large variability, ranging from 2 hours to 9 days
  3. The Jewish festival of Passover is on 8 - 16th April and there is a requirement to clean.

What I would like to see the local authority do

I really think that the local authority need to get those commercial bins into domestic areas, sooner rather than later, before this becomes an additional public health emergency. I would also point out that not only does this disproportionately impact on people with disabilities and of certain religious groupings, but also people on lower incomes - living in more densely populated parts of the borough, in houses of multiple occupancy, in high rise flats and on council estates - to put it bluntly the poor - who are already disproportionately suffering in this crisis unable to afford to stockpile, laid-off from low paid jobs and, as we know from the Marmot Report, already have the lowest life expectancy rates, that are falling.
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