The figures, which will be presented in a quarterly monitoring report to the council’s cabinet next week (November 17) – paint a more optimistic picture for the city after recycling rates fell by 2% in 2014/15.
Opt-in £35 per year garden waste collections were introduced in early 2014, which led to increased flytipping on Birmingham’s streets in the run-up to the local elections as some residents chose to boycott the service (see letsrecycle.com story).
The number of subscriptions during the first year of the collection service covered 50,000 of the estimated 250,000 households in Birmingham – rising to 59,000 in 2015. The council is now taking further subscriptions for the service for 2016.
Awareness
Despite the growth in subscriptions, which a council spokesman attributed to “awareness and increased satisfaction”, Birmingham is still lagging slightly behind its overall 35% recycling target for 2015/16.
The authority has witnessed a 130% boost in the sale of home composting bins across the city, suggesting that more householders are bypassing the controversial collections altogether.
Birmingham has observed a 23.50% increase in dry recycling collections since rolling out new commingled 240-litre wheeled bins to householders, replacing separate box containers for materials and doubling capacity.
Paper is still collected separately from an insert in the bin. In July, Birmingham warned it may have to downgrade its recycling rate based on a national reduction in paper tonnages. However, the latest report states there had been a 17.22% rise in paper collections since the new bins were rolled out.
Ashfield
Elsewhere in the Midlands, Ashfield district council has announced plans to scrap the charge for its garden waste collection service to overcome its ailing recycling rate.
Ashfield has approved plans to scrap its £26-per-year charge for garden waste collections for a period of two years in order to boost its flagging recycling rate.
Recycling in Ashfield has remained stagnant at 34% since 2005, and the council’s cabinet hopes the measure will lead to a 10% increase in their overall rate.
Ashfield’s Portfolio Holder for Environment, councillor Tim Brown, said: “I am delighted that my colleagues have given their wholehearted support to this proposal.
“Ten years ago, over a four-year period, Ashfield’s recycling rate rose from 1% to 34% representing a dramatic improvement. A key factor in that progress was the way in which residents of Ashfield embraced the changes and responded positively to the new way of collecting their waste. We are confident that they will similarly embrace this latest proposed change to the service.”
If Nottinghamshire county council backs the proposal, details of the service change will be confirmed at the end of November.
Subscribe for free