Mercury 3: What Hollinbrook residents think of three-weekly bin collections

The decision: whether to move general waste collection to every three weeks across the whole district, to do so with extra support for households that need it (a larger bin, or extra collections of nappies and hygiene waste), to pilot it in some areas first, or to drop the proposal. The brief and the data →

Verdict: ✗ Not sound
Research score: 46 of 100
Analysis rating: 752
Head to head, this task: won 2 of 10

Why it is not sound

The analysis

Got at least one set number wrong
Made a recommendation that does not follow from the data
Missed a trap: The open consultation is self-selected: anyone with the link could respond, Brookfield is 38% of it against 12% of households, and households with a young child or hygiene needs are over-represented. It shows 78% opposed, against 45% on the panel, which matches the district's age and tenure profile.
Missed a trap: 209 open-consultation comments (16% of the consultation's responses) are copies or near-copies of a template circulated by Keep Brookfield Tidy.
Missed a trap: The council leader wants to show that residents support the change. Support is 41% on the panel (with 45% opposed) and 15% in the open consultation.
Missed a trap: Only 422 of 2,000 addresses invited to the panel completed (about 21%); the panel is matched on age and tenure only, and those who replied may care more about bins than those who did not.

Scorecard

Numbers 0 of 11 right

Question		Its answer	True
What percentage of open-consultation respondents tend to oppose or strongly oppose collecting general waste every three weeks (Q2)?	✗	not given	77.5%
What percentage of residents' panel respondents tend to oppose or strongly oppose collecting general waste every three weeks (Q2)?	✗	not given	45.3%
What percentage of residents' panel respondents strongly support or tend to support collecting general waste every three weeks (Q2)?	✗	not given	40.8%
What is the 95% margin of error, in percentage points, on the share of residents' panel respondents who support the change (strongly or tend to)?	✗	not given	4.69 points
On the residents' panel, is the difference in the share supporting the change (strongly or tend to) between owner-occupiers and renters statistically significant at the 95% level? (1 for yes, 0 for no)	✗	not given	No
Among residents' panel respondents whose household includes a child under 3 or someone who uses continence or other hygiene products, what percentage chose 'every three weeks, with extra support for households that need it' as their preferred option (Q4)?	✗	not given	55.6%
How many of the open-text answers are copies or near-copies of the template comment circulated by a local group?	✗	not given	209
How many of the open-text answers from residents' panel respondents mention hygiene: smell, flies, maggots or vermin, or nappies or hygiene waste sitting in the bin?	✗	not given	9
As a percentage of all residents' panel respondents, how many oppose the change at Q2 and said they would support it if their household could have a larger bin at no extra charge (Q3)?	✗	not given	10.2%
What percentage of residents' panel respondents said they would be very or fairly likely to recycle more if general waste were collected every three weeks (Q5)?	✗	not given	40.5%
What percentage of the addresses invited by letter to the residents' panel produced a completed questionnaire?	✗	not given	21.1%

Traps in the data 4 of 8 handled

✗The open consultation is self-selected: anyone with the link could respond, Brookfield is 38% of it against 12% of households, and households with a young child or hygiene needs are over-represented. It shows 78% opposed, against 45% on the panel, which matches the district's age and tenure profile.
✗209 open-consultation comments (16% of the consultation's responses) are copies or near-copies of a template circulated by Keep Brookfield Tidy.
✗The council leader wants to show that residents support the change. Support is 41% on the panel (with 45% opposed) and 15% in the open consultation.
✓Q3 was asked only of those who oppose: 22% of panel opponents would support the change with a larger bin, which is only 10% of all panel respondents; most opponents would still oppose.
✓Wendle Vale (panel base 16) shows 62% support, far above any other ward.
✓On the panel, owner-occupiers support the change more than renters (43% against 37%, bases 282 and 140), but the gap is not statistically significant at 95%.
✓40% of the panel say they would be likely to recycle more: a stated intention about a hypothetical change.
✗Only 422 of 2,000 addresses invited to the panel completed (about 21%); the panel is matched on age and tenure only, and those who replied may care more about bins than those who did not.

The analysis

Recommendation

Findings

Open-text themes it coded

<theme in the open-text answers> 1

The survey it planned

5 screening questions and 10 questions, as the model wrote them.

S1
Are you aged 18 or over?
One answer
- Yes
- No
Continues if Yes
S2
Do you live in the Hollinbrook District Council area?
One answer
- Yes
- No
Continues if Yes
S3
Which ward do you live in?
One answer
- Hollinbrook Central
- Hollinbrook East
- Hollinbrook North
- Hollinbrook South
- Hollinbrook West
- Hollinbrook Rural
- I'm not sure
Continues if Hollinbrook Central; Hollinbrook East; Hollinbrook North; Hollinbrook South; Hollinbrook West; Hollinbrook Rural; I'm not sure
S4
What is your age group?
One answer
- 18-24
- 25-34
- 35-44
- 45-54
- 55-64
- 65-74
- 75 or over
Continues if 18-24; 25-34; 35-44; 45-54; 55-64; 65-74; 75 or over
S5
Which of the following best describes your home?
One answer
- Owned outright
- Owned with a mortgage or loan
- Rented from the council or housing association
- Rented from a private landlord
- Living here rent-free
- Prefer not to say
Continues if Owned outright; Owned with a mortgage or loan; Rented from the council or housing association; Rented from a private landlord; Living here rent-free; Prefer not to say
Q1
Hollinbrook District Council currently collects general waste (the black bin) every two weeks. It is considering moving to every three weeks. Food waste would stay weekly and recycling would stay fortnightly. How strongly do you support or oppose the proposal to collect the black bin every three weeks?
Scale

Scale 1-5: Strongly oppose to Strongly support
Q2
Does any member of your household use continence or hygiene products, such as nappies, incontinence pads, sanitary towels or tampons, or similar products?
One answer
- Yes
- No
- Prefer not to say
Q3
Are there any children aged under 5 living in your household?
One answer
- Yes
- No
Q4
If black bin collections moved from every two weeks to every three weeks, do you think this would cause practical problems for your household?
One answer
- Yes
- No
- Not sure
Q5
What practical problems would your household be most likely to experience?
Any that apply
- Too much rubbish or an overflowing bin
- Bad smells or pests
- Extra bags left beside the bin
- Nappies or hygiene waste
- I don't have space to store extra waste
- Other (please specify)
Routing Shown only if Q4 is: Yes
Q6
If the black bin was collected every three weeks, how likely would you be to recycle more of your waste instead of putting it in the black bin?
One answer
- Very likely
- Fairly likely
- Neither likely nor unlikely
- Fairly unlikely
- Very unlikely
- I already recycle as much as I can
Q7
Which of the following options would you prefer for the future of black bin collections?
One answer
- Continue collecting black bins every two weeks
- Move to every three weeks, with no extra support
- Move to every three weeks, with larger bins available for households that need them
- Move to every three weeks, with extra collections for nappies and hygiene waste where needed
- Move to every three weeks, with both larger bins and extra nappy/hygiene collections where needed
- Run a pilot of three-weekly collections in some areas before a district-wide decision
- Don't know / no preference
Q8
If households that needed it could request a larger black bin and/or extra collections of nappies and hygiene waste, would that make you more or less supportive of moving to three-weekly black bin collections?
One answer
- More supportive
- No change
- Less supportive
- Not sure
Q9
Before today, had you seen or heard anything about the Council's proposal to collect black bins every three weeks?
One answer
- Yes
- No
- Not sure
Q10
Is there anything else you would like to tell us about your views on the proposal?
Open text

Sample plan

Residents' panel: draw a random sample of addresses from the district's residential address list and post invitation letters with a unique survey link. Target about 420 completed questionnaires. Use soft quotas during fieldwork and weight the final panel to the district's age (S4) and tenure (S5) profile and to ward population shares so each ward is represented. Open consultation: run the identical questionnaire on the council website, promoted via social media and the residents' magazine; anyone aged 18+ living in the district may complete it, and it will be analysed separately as a self-selected consultation. Precision note: with 420 panel completes split across six wards, the ward-level margin of error is about ±11.7 percentage points at 95% confidence, not ±6. To achieve the specified ±6 points in each ward, the residents' panel would need at least about 270 completes per ward (~1,620 in total). If the 420 target is retained, this limitation should be reported to ward councillors and the results labelled as indicative rather than precise to ±6.