The council is considering the measure in a bid to cut operational costs and reduce the amount of food waste disposed of by residents in residual bins.
Currently, the authority collects residual in black wheeled bins, recycling collected in blue wheeled bins and garden and food waste are collected together in brown wheeled bins. Each is collected once a fortnight.
However, the council is seeking to reduce the amount of food waste in residents’ black residual bins by introducing of a separate weekly food collection service.
And, as part of this, the council is considering cutting back black bin collections to once every three weeks in order to further discourage residents from disposing of food in the residual waste bins – the contents of which are sent to Veolia’s energy from waste (EfW) facility at Four Ashes.
Appraisal
Councillors earlier this month approved an appraisal of the possible benefits of introducing these changes, with the aim of reporting back on any suggested improvements to the collection service by December 2015.
A council spokesman said that there were “no plans” to outsource its current in-house collection services, which see food waste collected together with garden waste and sent to Biffa’s in-vessel composting (IVC) facility in Etwall, Derbyshire.
However, it is unclear whether collecting food waste separately would result in the council sending it to a separate, dedicated food waste processing facility.
A borough council spokesman said that as it was still at an early stage, he was unable to say at present whether there would be changes to the existing contract as “the scope of the work has yet to be determined”.
Improvements
A council report on the issue, which was considered at a meeting early this month states: “As society (and legislation) becomes more environmentally friendly, waste collection and disposal becomes more expensive. Accordingly, we are always looking to continuously improve our operation and reduce operational costs. This year we will consider the benefits of a separate weekly food collection, and any other models, as part of a future waste collection service. This will not incorporate a charging service.”
Should the council move to three-weekly waste collections, it would be only the second authority in England to do so after Bury council voted unanimously in favour of similar changes last summer (see letsrecycle.com story). However, several councils in Wales as well as Falkirk in Scotland are planning similar waste collection frequencies.
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