Struggling at 341st position in the latest English recycling league with a recycling rate of 14% (see letsrecycle.com story), Nottingham city council has now hired door-knocking specialists Enventure to find out why only 55% of householders are satisfied with their recycling service.
” The city council is trying to make sure that we improve our services in line with what the public want. “
– Cllr Brian Grocock
Nottingham city council started its kerbside recycling service in August
2002, and since then have put in place three different systems throughout the city.
Systems
The largest part of the city, some 73,000 households, receive a fortnightly “blue bag” collection of paper and weekly refuse collections. About 36,000 homes are on an alternate weekly system with household waste, garden waste and paper collected fortnightly in wheeled bins. About 6,000 households are on an alternate weekly scheme where cans are also collected for recycling.
Councillors were told in a recent officers' report that kerbside recycling performance and participation rates varied “significantly” between different areas of Nottingham. The fortnightly collection of residual waste in some parts of the city is also thought to have added to residents' dissatisfaction.
The report from council officers warned: “Increasing concerns about local customer satisfaction, alongside increasing national expectations to recycle more, demands a fundamental review of the current arrangements. This needs to take account of not only the collection regime, but also the facilities that are available for disposal.”
Satisfaction
Customer satisfaction surveys over the last few years have found that satisfaction dropped to a low of just 48% during 2003/04. Council officers said Nottingham did not compare well to other UK cities.
Putting a brave face on the council's task, Nottingham city council's environment spokesman, Cllr Brian Grocock, said: “The city council is trying to make sure that we improve our services in line with what the public want. That is why we are consulting widely and listening to what people have to say.”
Enventure, which has also run door-stepping campaigns in Guildford and Lancashire as well as attitude surveys in Shropshire, will seek to establish exactly what are the problems and barriers faced by Nottingham householders.
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Project manager Jessica Twemlow said: “This is an excellent chance for Nottingham city council to evaluate their current recycling service. Nottingham will have tough recycling targets to meet over the next five years, and it's important they make sure they are heading in the right direction.”
Possible ideas to improve the situation include returning to weekly residual waste collections across the city, expanding the range of materials that can be collected for recycling and changing the types of containers provided for collections.
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