Bury council in Greater Manchester will risk a backlash from Communities Secretary Eric Pickles, with councillors to consider becoming the first local authority in England to collect residual waste once every three weeks.
The council, which estimates that it recycled around 47% of its household waste in 2013/14, hopes that changes to its collection service could help to push its recycling rate up to 60% by March 2016.
According to Bury council every 1% improvement in its recycling rate will save it up to 130,000 in treatment and disposal costs.
A report to be considered by councillors at a meeting next week (July 16) claims that the best way for Bury to drive increased recycling is through behaviour change achieved by restricting capacity for residual waste and education and guidance for householders.
Moving from a fortnightly to a three weekly collection regime for residual waste from October 2014 has been put forward as the preferred option for councillors to consider.
Current system:
- Grey 240l residual waste bin collected fortnightly
- Brown bin or food caddy for garden and or food waste collected fortnightly
- Green 240l bin for paper and cardboard collected every four weeks
- Blue 240l bin for glass, plastics and metals collected every four weeks
Recycling
This would also involve increasing the frequency of recycling collections, with residents currently having separate 240 litre bins for paper and card, and glass, cans and plastic, which are both collected on a monthly basis.
And, the council is proposing that recyclable materials would be collected once every three weeks while food and garden waste would continue to be collected fortnightly.
Residents would also continue to use the 240 litre grey residual waste bins that are currently in use.
Spending
The council estimates that by reducing collection frequency instead of purchasing newer, smaller capacity bins it can avoid a capital outlay of 1.1 million for the 70,000 140 litre capacity containers needed to keep a fortnightly service.
Proposed system:
- Grey 240l residual waste bin collected every three weeks
- Brown bin or food caddy for garden and or food waste collected fortnightly
- Green 240l bin for paper and cardboard collected every three weeks
- Blue 240l bin for glass, plastics and metals collected every three weeks
The council also predicts that the proposed change could result in net savings of around 862,000 per year from 2015/16, and there would be no increase in operational costs or job losses.
A reduction in residual waste is also expected to save the council money, with treatment and disposal of black bin waste costing the authority a total of 283, compared to 61 for the treatment of garden and food waste and an income of 25 for every tonne of recyclable material produced.
DCLG
Should the decision be approved by councillors next week it is not likely to be welcomed by the Department for Communities and Local Government, which has strongly opposed a reduction in waste collection frequency by local authorities, and has criticised councils looking to make the swtich to a less frequent service.
Related Links
Communities Secretary Eric Pickles has claimed it is a residents right to have residual waste collected weekly, and in January published a bin bible to attempt to encourage councils to move to a weekly collection.
So far only Gwynedd council in Wales and Falkirk in Scotland (on a trial basis) have approved plans to collect waste on a three-weekly rotation.
Register for free to comment