Councillor Seve Gomez Aspron has confirmed that the Merseyside-based local authority will roll out the Trolleyblock bin to a number of households in the coming months, which allows residents to stack three smaller containers on top of each other. Formal details of the plan have yet to be confirmed.
The container design, which has been developed to free up space outside properties, has already proved popular in Conwy, North Wales, where the council has rolled out the recycling collection container to over 50,000 households.
The ‘3BoxStack’ container, which is designed and manufactured by Straight, now a part of the OnePlastics group, is intended to be more easily wheeled out for collection than separate containers.
Trial
A spokesman for St Helens confirmed the council had been following the North Wales roll out ‘with interest’. Bryson Recycling has also used the container for some of its collections in Northern Ireland.
The Conwy ‘Trolibloc’ recycling collection containers saw residual waste collected from households in trial areas reduce by around 4.8%, while dry recycling increased around 6% according to the council (see letsrecycle.com story).
In St Helens the council has no plans as yet to remove bags and recycling boxes used across the borough, but it hopes the trial period will allow residents to decide which recycling collection method they prefer.
Commenting on the initiative, councillor Gomez Aspron, said: “The point is to offer people a solution that suits them. Some people don’t want a space consuming third bin, and some people want something more robust. If we can offer an option, then hopefully more people will feel as if they can participate in our highly successful recycling scheme.”
Households
St Helens council includes around 83,000 households, covering the town of St Helens as well as Newton-le-Willows, Earlestown, Haydock, Rainhill, Eccleston, Clock Face, Billinge and Rainford. The council achieved a recycling rate of 36.8%, but is aiming to boost its recycling rate to meet the 50% by 2020 UK-wide target.
Recycling collections across the borough take place every week and involve black box collections for cardboard and glass, a blue bag for paper, a pink bag for plastics and metal and a grey kitchen caddy for food waste. Brown bin residual waste collections takes place fortnightly, alternating with the collections of a green bin for garden waste.
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