The Welsh county council has a blue bag collection for waste paper and a blue box collection for cans, plastic and glass. Although both collections are fortnightly, they have been carried out on different days, causing confusion to residents.
Now the county council has decided to link both services together by collecting all recyclable materials on the same day.
Alan Roberts, waste strategy and recycling officer at Flintshire county council, said: “The change of collection day will make it easier for residents to remember they should put out their blue bag on the same day as the blue box. It will make collection more reliable and it will make our scheme easier to remember.”
The council hopes that implementing this change will help increase the tonnage of newspapers and magazines it collects from 2,000 tonnes to 6,000 tonnes a year, which it is sending to local paper recycler UPM Shotton. At the moment, the council recycles or composts about 16% of its municipal waste – exceeding its 2003/04 target of 15%. Its next target has been set by the Welsh Assembly at 25% by 2005/06.
Green waste
In addition to improving its dry recyclables collections, the county council will be rolling out its green waste collections in an attempt to reduce the biodegradable waste it sends to landfill.
Flintshire's garden waste collections currently cover 13,000 households but the expansion to Mold and Deeside will take this number up to 26,000 the equivalent of 40% of the county. The collected material will be going to the county council's composting site in Greenfield.
Councillor Kevin Jones, executive member for community and housing at the council, said: “The efficient recycling of garden waste is very important to our waste management strategy and this is reflected in the council's investment and development of its composting centre in Greenfield which opened in April 2002.”
He added: “The garden waste service has proved very popular with the households it currently serves and we will be seeking to expand the service to cover as much of the county as possible in the coming months.”
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