According to the council’s cabinet member for sustainability, the lower target was recommended within the council’s 2014/15 performance monitoring report due to a ‘technical error’.
Councillor Lisa Trickett told the cabinet at a recent meeting that the recommendation to reduce the target from 35% to 30% called into question the ‘green credentials’ of the council.
She added that she wished to make a ‘verbal amendment’ to the report in order to clarify that the council had no intention of lowering what she perceived to be a challenging target.
The idea of a target reduction was set out in Birmingham’s 2014/15 performance monitoring report and was put to the council following a fall in household and municipal recycling across the city.
The reduction has largely been blamed on a fall in green waste composting, with tonnages down 11,000 tonnes in 2014/15 compared to the previous year (see letsrecycle.com story).
‘Tolerance’
And, while Cllr Trickett rejected proposals to lower the target, she did state there would be a ‘10% tolerance’ in meeting the 35% recycling target in 2015/16 so to ‘better understand’ changes in composting.
The council believes that a rise in home composting may have had an impact on tonnages in the city – though opposition councillors have previously argued residents boycotted the green waste collection service following the introduction of a £35 per year charge.
Councillor Trickett said: “I would not wish for the green credentials of this council to be questioned one jot which is why I refuse to countenance the recycling target being changed. My only explanation for why it is appeared so in this document is that it must be a technical error that came through.
“I have an email trail for a range of meetings with officers where we discussed this in full and I am very clear that we retain the current recycling target, but with a 10% tolerance for us to better understand what is going on in terms of the changes to composting with green waste.”
She added: “The more important target for me is to see a much stronger reduction in the amount of waste we produce as a city.”
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