A disabled Tullibody woman was left in tears after a man who volunteered to help get rid of her domestic waste was refused entry to the waste recycle centre at Forthbank last Sunday (19 October).

Norah McPhee (48), of Glenochil Park, hired a van and enlisted a volunteer driver to uplift domestic waste left behind by her late mother. She says she had already called the council to uplift her waste before, but they were unable to because it was oversized. As a last resort she hired a Alloa van hire firm Fairdrive, whose owner George Grieve contacted a friend, Daniel Drummond, to help uplift the materials.

Norah could not accompany the driver, upon arriving to the waste management centre Daniel was denied entry. She told the Advertiser what happened that afternoon: “Danny was gone for a long time, to the point that we got worried about what had happened to him, because he should have been back. I phoned Danny up, he said he had a bit of a bother at the tip.

“I just lost my mum there last month, so it was upsetting enough trying to get this all done, without having it even worse. I just couldn’t believe it. They were bound to see that there were plant pots and an old gate and that. They bound to have seen that it was from a household.” Mother-of-two Norah, who suffers from chronic fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue and has broken her back three times, requires two walking sticks to aid her movement.

The waste from her mother’s garden and shed mainly consisted of compost, plant pots, some wood and scrap metal.

Daniel claims he was told at the gate to the tip that he was carrying commercial waste, and says the worker there refused to check what was in the back of the van.

And George claims that, for over a year and a half, he had continuous issues with Forthbank. He said: “The people who hire my vans always phone me to say that they can’t get in. We are getting singled out.” “I can understand why they have a problem with it, because a lot of the vans are hired out to builders and that’s fine.

“But they’ve got to learn to differentiate whether it’s a hired van with commercial waste or not.

“This waste was clearly from a garden.” Clackmannanshire Council, which runs the facility, issued the following statement: “We’re sorry that this resident is unhappy.

“If we are contacted in advance and told that a householder cannot accompany their waste to Forthbank because they are disabled, we can organise to verify the origin of the waste and allow access to the facilities.

“Residents are issued with cards to allow access to the household waste recycling centre at Forthbank. This ensures that only Clackmannanshire residents and registered waste carriers can access local facilities. Anyone with queries can look on ClacksWeb or call the Contact Centre.” Norah fears for people in a similar situation and called for the council to re-evaluate what they uplift.

She added: “This is how they are going to get people fly-tipping again.”