There are 16 bring bank sites in the district collecting paper, glass, cans and textiles for recycling as well as two household waste sites that can also take cardboard and green waste.
But as a new 660,110 kerbside service starts in September for 9,000 households, expanding to 38,000 households by February 2004, the council has urged residents to continue to use the bring banks as well.
Councillor Keith Robertson, portfolio holder for commercial services at Wyre Forest district council, said: “The recycling banks will not be taken away with the forthcoming introduction of the new kerbside recycling scheme, in actual fact we are looking for more sites to place the banks so we can give people the choice of how they would like to recycle. In order to achieve the challenging government targets we will all need to do our bit and I would urge people to support the recycling banks as well as the new scheme.”
Funding for the kerbside service has come from the second round of the government's 140 million Waste Minimisation and Recycling Fund. At the moment, the district recycles about 8% of its household waste, and the new kerbside service will be key to reaching its statutory target of 25% by 2005.
Some councils see the use of bring banks fall off as new kerbside collection services are brought in. This may mean that although there are increases in recycling from kerbside collections, these increases may be tempered by decreases in recycling from other facilities, such as bring banks, where more types of materials can be collected than in the kerbside services.
Encouraging people to use all recycling services, Cllr Robertson said: “Many people don't realise the variety of things that you can put into the recycling banks, for example: did you know that you can put aerosols and foil into the can banks and glass jars into the bottle banks? It is also important not to forget that the charity shops may like to re-use some items such as clothes, bric-a-brac and furniture. One person's rubbish is another person's treasure.”
Minimisation
The council has instructed its refuse collection team not to collect wheeled bins from properties where the bin lids are not fully shut, or any waste left outside the bin in an attempt to encourage waste minimisation and recycling.
“The government has set challenging targets for us to reduce the amount of household waste that we produce by up to 10%, so we just can't keep collecting an unlimited amount,” Cllr Robertson explained.
“The new practices are designed to complement the recycling initiative and encourage everybody to reduce and recycle as much of their waste as possible – if we continue collecting side waste and two bins from some properties, there is no real incentive for them to recycle,” he added.
Council employees are applying stickers on the bins of the district's 42,000 households to identify them to satisfy the one bin per household policy and also raise awareness of what can be recycled. Changes to the council's refuse system are also being highlighted by the council in a number of roadshow events.
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