Green waste debate heats up at RWM

Chaired by letsrecycle.com editor Steve Eminton, ‘Balancing income against the cost of service delivery: What is the future of garden waste disposal?’, saw councillors discuss the pros and cons of  green waste collection charges in relation to their own boroughs.

Councillor Symon Fraser, portfolio holder for environment at East Riding of Yorkshire council, said that his residents were “happy” not to pay garden waste charges, but conceded more communication was needed to ensure food waste is put in the green waste bin.

He said: “I think introducing green waste charges [in East Riding] would be a very unpopular thing to do. There are things we can still focus on which can give us greater financial benefit. We still have work to do in reducing food waste and ensuring it all goes in the right bin. There is still an educational job to do there.”

But councillor Nick Naylor, cabinet member for environment at South Buckinghamshire district council, said that his authority had progressed from “one of the lowest performing council’s in the country” to recycling around 50% of waste since introducing an opt-in annual fee of £45 for garden waste collections.

South Buckinghamshire currently collects an estimated 68 tonnes of garden waste per week, one of eight separate waste streams the authority collects on a weekly basis.

Tendring

Meanwhile councillor Nick Turner, deputy leader of Tendring district council in Essex, similarly championed the positive aspects of opt-in collection fees – saying his council was right to ‘choose the high end of the spectrum’ by charging £50 a year for the service.

The council decided to roll out a two-year pilot scheme for 5,800 households – of which 2,155 have signed up and 1,887 paid their invoices in the three months since the project was launched.

Arguing in favour of the fees, Cllr Turner said the pilot was a “double whammy”, allowing Tendring to pull out of the scheme if it was unpopular or introduce a permanent fixture quickly if it proved successful.

But some members of the audience were sceptical of the need for green waste charges, arguing that district and borough councils should do more to work together while offering mixed food and green waste services to save money for residents.

However, defending the council’s stance, Cllr Naylor said that it was hard to coordinate inter-authority working, as many councils have different requirements for their residents.

He said: “Our authority is 90% rural but not everyone wants to have a green waste bin so we had to introduce the charge.

“We try to work closely with the county council and the four districts in the area. We share a management team with Chiltern and we have a joint contract with Wycombe. But sometimes inter-authority agreements don’t work out.”

The introduction of garden waste collection charges has proved controversial in some circles, with DCLG minister Brandon Lewis recently slamming South Gloucestershire for using residents as “cash cows” (see letsrecycle.com story). The council is also fighting a legal challenge which is trying to repeal the £36 charge.

Tendring’s Cllr Turner said it was “intensely annoying” that authorities were facing legal challenges over their garden waste collection fees.

He said: “Any council that takes the initiative seems to be legally challenged now, and it annoys me intensely. We know we are doing the right thing, and when we are wrong our residents will tell us.”