City councillors agreed last night to phase in the new weekly food waste service throughout next year to 150,000 households across Bristol. It will run alongside existing dry recyclables collections.
The service will not include flats, but consultation on a possible service for flats is to be carried out.
” We need to do this to protect the environment and people's pockets.“
– Cllr Gary Hopkins, Bristol CC
Councillors also agreed to residual waste collections switching to a fortnightly frequency, as well as a new green waste and cardboard collection service offered on a fortnightly basis for a fee.
Houses without the space for new waste containers will continue to be offered weekly residual waste collections.
The new service is set to be rolled out by contractor SITA UK, which is to have its existing refuse and recycling contract extended to 2011 to allow the new service to be established.
In-vessel
Collected food waste, green waste and cardboard is to be recycled into compost within in-vessel composting facilities to meet UK regulations for treating animal by-products.
Collected food waste will be sent to nearby facilities in Somerset, Dorset or South Wales for treatment, although the city council is now looking to develop in-vessel composting facilities locally.
Councillor Gary Hopkins, executive member for sustainable environment and neighbourhoods, said: “We need to do this to protect the environment and people's pockets. These changes have the potential to double the amount of waste we recycle by 2008 and help us to avoid hefty fines. I look forward to Bristol residents getting onboard with this scheme.”
The cost of the new organics collection service will run to several million pounds up to 2011 within the extended SITA UK contract. However, the council told letsrecycle.com these costs will be largely covered by savings from Landfill Tax that will no longer have to be paid on material diverted from landfill.
Targets
Kerbside organics collections could raise Bristol's recycling rate from the current 17% level up to 34% by 2007/8, council officers believe. Estimates suggest the scheme will collect just over 22,000 tonnes of compostable material each year. This will surpass government targets to recycle or compost 27% of Bristol's household waste.
In the last financial year, Bristol landfilled 168,500 tonnes of waste, of which 114,500 tonnes was biodegradable.
Under the government's Landfill Allowance Trading Scheme, the city must cut the amount of biodegradable waste it sends to landfill to 76,564 tonnes by 2010, 50,996 tonnes by 2013 and just 35,684 tonnes by 2020. Bristol taxpayers collectively face multi-million pound fines if the targets are not met.
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In order to comply with the targets, Bristol city council can buy more allowances from other councils. But, council officers believe the new organics scheme will push back the year from when they will have to purchase extra landfill allowances from 2007/08 to 2010/11.
The development of a 2 million pyrolysis plant with local firm Compact Power could also push back the need for additional landfill allowances further, if the project is successful.
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