Birmingham city council the largest local authority in the UK is to adopt a system whereby its in-house collection crews and street cleaners concentrate on particular areas five days a week. This will be tested first on 20,000 households in the Sheldon and Stechford & Yardley North areas from August 1, before being rolled out across the rest of the city.
At present, collection crews work across much larger areas and do not have responsibility for their own patch.
A council spokesman explained that the reason for the change was twofold: Firstly, it saves money on fuel because the crews will be working in a smaller area. Our fuel bill is currently 3 million a year and we reckon this will save 10-20%.
He added that the approach was also intended to make crews more accountable to the public. He said: The idea is they become responsible for one area and gain better knowledge of that area.
There are 40 wards in Birmingham and the new local patches will be based on these areas. At present, the city council operates 46 residual waste collection crews and over the next year this number will be reduced to 40, with the crews operating within the ward boundaries. The number of vehicles collecting recyclables and green waste will also be reduced, with the council is investigating the possibility of buying some split-bodied vehicles to reduce the number of journeys.
As part of the new arrangements, many residents will see a change to their regular collection day, or cycle of the weeks in which they receive a green waste or recycling collection.
Collection arrangements in Birmingham at present mean that refuse is collected from domestic properties on the same day once a week. Meanwhile, paper and card is collected in a blue box every fortnight and glass bottles and jars, food and drinks cans and plastic bottles from your green box, every fortnight. Green sacks containing garden waste are collected on alternate weeks to the above.
Message
Letters were sent on Friday (July 22) to all affected properties to advise them of the new arrangements. The city council is also taking out advertisements this week in local papers and speaking on the radio to get the message across.
We dont expect chaos and disruption or rubbish piling up on the street, commented the council spokesman, in response to some local media reports which had suggested the new service may cause confusion. We are hoping that, while there will be some people on autopilot with regards to when they put their waste out this will settle down in the next few weeks.
The whole point of carrying out the trial is to learn how best to communicate this to people.
The changes to household waste collections in Birmingham will not affect the councils trade waste collection service. The spokesman explained: Our trade waste collections are not spread evenly over the city we collect lots more in the city centre so we are not basing this around the citys wards.
Birmingham city council employs 850 staff across fleet and waste management, with the majority working on the frontline as refuse and recycling collectors and street cleaners.
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The council collects around380,000 tonnes of general black bag waste a year, the majority of which is sent to its Tyseley energy from waste plant, which is operated by Veolia.
The move to change waste and recycling collection schedules comes six months after a strike by refuse collectors in Birmingham in January 2011 over pay and working conditions (see letsrecycle.com story).
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