CONCERNED Abergavenny residents are furious that the town’s One Stop Shop has not had any food waste bags in stock for well over a week and they have had nothing to efficiently recycle their chicken bones, banana peels, and mouldy bloomers in.  

One resident who was down to his last food bag and put on a spectacular spread for their extended family last weekend explained to the Chronicle that, “I needed a fair few bags to dispose of the leftovers and so visited the One Stop Shop earlier this week.”  

Much to their disgust, they were greeted with a sign informing them there were no food waste bags left. 

The resident who wishes to remain anonymous explained, “To make matters worse, no one seemed to know why there was a shortage, or when the issue would be resolved. It takes the biscuit it really does, except there’s now nowhere for the crumbs to go, except straight to landfill!” 

The outraged resident added, “My blue bin collection was on Wednesday but guess what? All the considerable leftovers from the feast I cooked on the weekend had to be put in a black bag because I had no food waste bags to put it in. That’ll all go straight to landfill now. It’s horrific! Imagine what someone like Greta Thunberg would say. How long will this state of affairs be allowed to last? Think of the environment MCC and shape up! “

One of Abergavenny’s leading conspiracy theorists told the Chronicle that they had heard a rumour that the council had run out of food waste bags because they had used them all to recycle the rotting apples after brewing giant Heineken cut down a huge orchard in Monmouthshire the size of 140 football pitches. 

The trees were presumably felled because no one drinks cider anymore and “the best beer is brewed in a better world.” But the conspiracy theorist may have been on too something. What did they do with the old fruit?    

Priding ourselves on always keeping an open mind, at the same time we contacted MCC with a query about the shortage of food waste bags, we also asked if there was a grain of truth in the Heineken story.  

Two days later the council issued a sparse statement that read, “Penrhos Farm did not require a felling licence or any form of consent from the Council (or any other party)as it was a commercial orchard.” 

They also explained that they were still looking into why there were no food waste bags at the One Stop Shop and would let us know as soon as there were any updates. 

Forsaking the formal and often fruitless cut and thrust that occurs between a newspaper and a council’s communication department, the Chronicle, wearing the hat of a concerned resident, decided to ring MCC’s Recycling and Waste Service directly to ask if they knew anything. They didn’t but they were more than happy to send us some food waste bags via post within the next ten days. 

So although the moral of the story may be the left-hand doesn’t always know what the right hand is doing, particularly when it comes to bureaucracy, the real takeaway is, that there are food waste bags in those there hills folks! You just have to box clever when it comes to getting your hands on them! 

Happy hunting!