The service changes, agreed by the council’s Infrastructure Services Committee this week, are designed to “push up recycling rates and send less to landfill”.
Three-weekly residual collections were first proposed by the council at the start of the year. As part of the overarching waste strategy, Aberdeenshire council sought £3.2 million funding from Zero Waste Scotland to help roll-out new containers to be used as part of the service.
DRS
However, this was “thrown into doubt”, the council says, when Zero Waste Scotland confirmed it would not provide the money required.
According to Aberdeenshire, the decision related to a review of the Code of Practice associated with Scotland’s Household Waste Recycling Charter, which is to be undertaken ‘once the full implications of the proposed Scottish Deposit Return Scheme are known’.
The Charter, launched in 2015, sets out a common approach to the operation of waste and recycling services, communication with residents, and common policies on issues such as contamination.
Approved
This week, the committee approved an option to use households’ existing bins in a three-weekly collection cycle while officers “continue to work to explore funding opportunities for further changes”.
One container and a food waste caddy will continue to be collected every week. This means:
Week 1 – General waste bins (landfill) and food waste collected
Week 2 – Recycling bin (blue lid) and food waste collected
Week 3 – Recycling bin (blue lid) and food waste collected
The materials that can be recycled on the kerbside will remain the same – but the blue-lidded recycling bin will be emptied more open (twice in every three weeks). The new service will be piloted in some areas in 2019 and rolled out to the rest of Aberdeenshire in 2020.
‘Negative effect’
ISC chair Peter Argyle said: “Clearly the decision by Zero Waste Scotland not to consider our funding bid has had a negative effect on our well-developed plans to push up Aberdeenshire’s recycling rate and send less recyclable materials to landfill.
“This was not our first choice as a solution, but this is the position we find ourselves in and we feel that this option makes the most of a difficult situation and will help push up recycling rates.
“At present, we see this as an interim measure, while we work to deliver a permanent scheme which provides a service for our residents which enables them to recycle as many materials as possible.
“One of the key things we continue to try to impress is that we want residents to simply think for a second about how they dispose of the waste they generate, then use the services we provide as best they can.”
Aberdeenshire
Aberdeenshire council collects around 60,000 tonnes of recyclable material and 80,000 tonnes of non-recyclable waste annually from 120,000 households and business customers across the region.
Residual waste is currently treated via a long term contract with Suez, largely using the company’s Stoneyhill landfill site. The authority sent a total of 69,000 tonnes of waste to landfill in 2017, according to data from the Scottish Environment Protection Agency.
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