The changes will include the creation of five “super-sites” within the West Midlands borough – which will offer larger banks for paper, glass and cans, as well as Tetra-Pak carton recycling.
Councillor Karen Shakespeare, cabinet member for the environment, welcomed the overhaul, which was made possible by an £80,000 Government waste infrastructure grant. “The recycling centres offer a valuable addition to the kerbside recycling service that many residents take full advantage of,” she said.
“We hope that this refurbishment of the entire service will encourage even more use in the future,” she added.
The five 'super-sites' will be positioned in each of the borough's areas, including the civic amenity site at Stourbridge and existing recycling centres in Kingswinford, Sedgeley, Halesowen, and Dudley itself.
The council is now hoping to complete the programme of improvements by March 2009.
Kerbside
Dudley revealed last week that it recycled and composted 13.526 tonnes of household waste via its kerbside recycling scheme in 2007-08, compared to 11.857 tonnes the year before
As a result its household recycling and composting rate increased from 22.97% to 27.1%, and the council has now set its sights on reaching a 30% goal by the end of 2008-09, 32% for 2009-10 and 34% in 2010-11.
The West Midlands' council has offered a kerbside recycling system since 2000, using a black box to collect glass, tins and paper, and is now making efforts to boost participation in the service, including phasing-in the introduction of recycling for high-rise blocks of flats.
Cllr Shakespeare said: “To say the scheme has only been running for eight years it has been a big success but we still really want to ensure that more and more people are taking part.”
“Current figures show that around 55 per cent of homes are making the most of the scheme but we want to get this figure as close to 100 per cent as we possibly can,” she added.
Green waste
Dudley also released figures earlier this month showing that it had recycling 30,000 tonnes of household green waste since introduction fortnightly collections of green waste bins in May 2006.
In the first year of the scheme, 5,337 tonnes was recycled, increasing to 14.291 in 2007, and the council revealed that 10,000 tonnes had already been recycling in 2008.
Commenting on the scheme's success, Cllr Shakespeare said: “We have been absolutely delighted with the way people across the borough have taken to the green waste recycling scheme.”
She added: “As the figures show, more and more people are making the most of the service each year and we hope this trend will continue for years to come.”
Register for free to comment