The largest local authority in the UK, Birmingham has around 400,000 households, of which 324,000 are now covered by the city's in-house fortnightly box scheme. The council is now aiming to add nearly 40,000 more properties on the paper collections by the end of this financial year.
“What we have looked to do is operate the service wherever it is feasible and then plug in the gaps,” Jeremy Shields, spokesman for the council, told letsrecycle.com, “We are aiming for as close to 100% as we can get. The city is over 100 years old in some places so we are covering as much as possible.”
Mr Shields said Birmingham wanted to keep its recycling scheme straight-forward but productive. He said: “We try and look for things we can do. We are very very good at putting single materials repeatedly into a vehicle. That's why we have gone for paper and cardboard waste. They can be collected easily, quickly and with high productivity.”
The paper and cardboard collected by the kerbside scheme goes to Kappa Smith Stone and Knight paper mill in Saltley, where it is used to produce cardboard packaging. For 2002/03 Birmingham city council's recycling rate was 10.7%.
Political will
Birmingham's continuing kerbside expansion comes despite the large influence of its incinerator on the city's waste management. Over 70% of household waste goes to the Tyseley energy-from-waste plant but the city councillors are nevertheless keen to support recycling.
Mr Shields said: “We carry out a MORI poll every year which shows people are concerned with recycling and when councillors go out and they get a positive response from people.”
The only cost of adding the 40,000 properties is to add a further two rounds, with vehicles and manpower, to the existing scheme. The paper collection has previously received funding from DEFRA's Waste Minimisation and Recycling Fund and Mr Shields added that the council is preparing a bid for another grant this week.
With most of the funding for recycling coming from the council's budget, Mr Shields said that councillors like to see results for the money they invest into recycling schemes: “It is hard work but on the other hand we can see results. We started this year recycling 11% and we should get 14% by the end of the year. Our councillors are happy as long as we get the results.”
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