The London Borough of Barnet has issued a household in Totteridge with a legal notice, which could lead to court action and a fine of up to 1,000 for failure to separate waste for recycling.
” There are no excuses, we have made it possible for everyone to recycle in Barnet.“
– Cllr Matthew Offord, Barnet council
The action comes after numerous letters from the council asking the household to take part in the council's weekly black box recycling scheme – and visits from a council officer.
Barnet became the first local authority in the UK to introduce a compulsory recycling scheme in early 2004 (see letsrecycle.com story). The compulsory scheme was originally run across 25,000 households, but it expanded borough-wide in March of this year.
The Totteridge household currently facing legal action was among the original households on the trial phase of the compulsory scheme, and has had 14 months to get recycling, the council said.
No excuses
Councillor Matthew Offord, cabinet member for the environment, said: “There are no excuses, we have made it possible for everyone to recycle in Barnet, with our free weekly doorstep collections from every house in the borough.
“The majority of our residents are taking part in our black box scheme and this has helped boost our recycling rate to 25%, but we need every resident recycling if we are to meet our 30% target for 2005/06,” Cllr Offord added.
Still the only council in the UK to employ a compulsory system for recycling, Barnet is using provisions of the Environmental Protection Act 1990 as a legal basis for its compulsory scheme, and if the approach is ultimately successful other councils could follow suit.
There is no set amount of recycling a household has to undertake to meet the terms of the compulsory scheme, only those “deliberately and persistently” failing to put anything in their black box face further action, the council has said.
Non-recyclers
The early stages of Barnet's compulsory recycling scheme saw 600 residents initially identified as non-recyclers. After various approaches to encourage the residents to get involved in the black box service, this number was cut to just five non-recycling households by June this year (see letsrecycle.com story).
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Barnet has said that most households joined in on the scheme after the initial letter, and as each phase of the compulsory system has moved on, more households have started recycling, leaving only the Totteridge household remaining.
The borough still maintains that court action will be a “last resort”, and that it would prefer households to start recycling.
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