Kirklees council has begun to roll out fortnightly household waste collections despite being opposed by Labour councillors in a campaign which was said to have won them seats in May's council elections.

The system will be introduced to homes in Kirklees, West Yorkshire, over a three year period which began in August. This follows a successful pilot, last year, involving 5,000 households covering parts of Almondbury, Lepton and Moldgreen.

Labour

The Labour Party gained two seats in the local government elections in May, when one third of the seats were up for grabs. The Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats lost one and two seats, respectively.

This meant that Labour had 22 seats - the highest number of all the parties - while the Conservatives had 20 and the Lib Dems had 18. Kirklees Labour councillor Mahmood Akhtar said his party gained seats because it vowed to retain weekly waste collections. It submitted a petition with 2,000 name in support of weekly waste collections at a council meeting held in public (see letsrecycle.com story).

However, the Conservatives and Lib Dems joined together in support of fortnightly collections and so the roll-out will continue. Kirklees Labour Party's deputy leader Councillor Ken Smith said: "The Labour Group was going for a more frequent recycling collection but was going to retain a weekly rubbish collection.

"However, though Labour is the largest party on the council we do not have a majority and were outvoted by the other parties on this matter," he added.

Collections

The new system will see collections of a grey bin for residual waste switching from weekly to fortnightly, while a green bin for paper/cardboard, plastic bottles and cans, moves from monthly to fortnightly. A glass collection system will also be expanded across the district.

The dry recyclables are sorted at a materials recycling facility in Huddersfield, operated by SITA UK. Residual waste is taken to an energy recovery facility, also in Huddersfield, which is also operated by SITA. It is expected that the new system will help boost Kirklees recycling/composting rate from 21% to 29%, once the scheme is fully rolled-out.

Conservative councillor Martyn Bolt, who is Kirklees portfolio holder for green services, said: "The pilot saw significant increases in recycling rates and the Labour Group didn't say how it could increase recycling or fund additional work.

"When rolling the system out, we've taken a hearts and minds approach. We've given people information about what we are doing and why, and how we can help them. We're also rolling the scheme out incrementally, area by area. We're one of the few councils that have come out of it very well when assessed by the media."