Expert suggests monthly residual collections

But, Mr Fulford said these services would need to be delivered alongside weekly food waste collections, well managed recycling collections and excellent communications with residents in order to work effectively. He also suggested there may be a role for Pay As You Throw.

Speaking at the LARAC conference last week (October 18) Mr Fulford said that councils are going to have to take drastic action to continue to deliver waste services to residents if they are to cope with future budget cuts.

He said: Forget about all of the recycling objectives we all hold important. Financially local authorities are going to have to do something very different to make the sums add up.

Mr Fulford noted that local authorities across the UK had moved from weekly residual waste collections to fortnightly ones, which has had a positive effect on recycling rates and budgets.

Councils are moving from weekly to fortnightly collections partly to save money and partly to increase recycling rates and protect the environment. The recycling performance, far more than anything else, has seen a very rapid improvement whilst we have seen support and increasing moves to the fortnightly collection of refuse.

The reason I think this is happening is because of the cuts in money to local governments. We have already had more stringent and far reaching cuts from central government support funding than any other part of the public sector. We still havent started to feel the full effect of this.

He suggested that monthly residual waste collections could help councils manage their budgets better: As we start to reduce the frequency of residual waste collections and the size of the containers it is taken away in, the question is are monthly waste collections the future?

Challenges

However, Mr Fulford noted that monthly residual waste collections would bring some challenges, such as public acceptability, recyclate contamination and a need to provide more regular collections for food waste and “unpleasant waste” such as incontinence pads and nappies.

He explained: I dont think that less frequent residual waste collections will be easy and there will be downsides, but they could work. There may be further affects, not for the householders, but for the operators who are on the waste rounds. There may be handling issues, mostly it is bioaerosols.

However, Mr Fulford said the risks could be managed and that the number of councils collecting food waste separately at the kerbside had been steadily increasing since 2005 and this was expected to grow significantly in the next few years, particularly in Scotland where there is a legal requirement for councils to do so by 2016.

Some people have been raised concerns that less frequent residual waste collections will lead to an increase in rats. However, Mr Fulford said that this was not the case, provided the service was well managed: As we know rats really arent a problem. A good collection system that is managed well will not give cause for a rise in rats.

Charging

In addition to monthly waste collections, Mr Fulford highlighted the potential for charging residents for the collection of residual waste. He said that Priula in Italy had implemented a scheme which saw residents charged every time their refuse was collected. This has led to higher recycling rates and less frequent residual waste collections, with many households opting for ten or 12 collections a year monthly or less.

Commenting on this system, he said: This would be a massive change but it could work if the charges are not particularly high. If they are too high then you could see an increase in fly tipping and burning of waste in back gardens.

He also questioned whether there was a place for a partnership which saw councils collect the bare minimum of waste and recycling required and the private sector collect the rest for a charge.

Pickles

Concluding his speech, Mr Fulford referred to Communities Secretary Eric Pickles and his attempts to encourage councils to move back to weekly residual waste collections. He said that ironically the Secretary of State’s 250 million Weekly Collection Support Scheme gave an endorsement to councils to move to less regular residual waste collections by funding weekly food waste collections, something which he described as the Pickles Paradox.