Six months on from the decision by city councillors to scrap Southampton's fortnightly waste collection service, council officers have revealed that residents that were on the scheme have been “conditioned” to some extent, and many still put out their residual waste on a fortnightly basis.
”A significant number of our residents are still putting residual waste out on a fortnightly basis. “
– Andrew Trayer, Southampton council
The decision by city councillors last October – against the recommendations of council officers, and counter to the opinions of residents surveyed in a MORI Poll – led some to believe Southampton would fail to reach its statutory target for recycling 24% of household waste by 2005/06.
But, though weekly residual waste collections were re-introduced in December, according to the council there has not been much change in the collection yields.
Andrew Trayer, waste management and recycling manager, said: “It is still early days to begin noticing trends, but a significant number of our residents are still putting residual waste out on a fortnightly basis.
“Because they are still putting a lot of their recyclable materials in the blue lidded bin we have not noticed a major fall in the recycling rate. To date it certainly has not been as bad as had been feared.” he added.
Difficulties
However, Mr Trayer said that it would be more difficult encouraging the next phase of households to recycle to the same level, as they have not had the fortnightly system at all.
He explained: “The first two phases were accustomed to using the system, and had become used to it. The major challenge for the remaining phases will be to achieve the same recycling rates as have been recorded previously.”
The council will continue to work with residents in order to increase awareness of its kerbside systems. As education and enforcement are seen as being important to achieving its recycling goals it could resort to enforcement measurements to compel residents to use their blue-lidded bins for the collection of recyclables.
Micro sites
Southampton has recently begun rolling out a new scheme which is aimed at increasing recycling rates among blocks of flats in the city.
The micro recycling site scheme will see about 400 bins of a 1,100 litre capacity placed in the vicinity of the blocks. Southampton has said that the bins will be fixed outside buildings or placed in “waste rooms” alongside the residual waste bins.
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Mr Trayer said: “We want all of our residents to have the same opportunities to recycle and this new scheme helps our residents living in flats to join in. We have been running the scheme for two months and the roll out should be complete by the summer.
“So far the tonnage has increased every week and we have been very pleased with the results,” he added.
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