The inspectors report which has recently been published, finds that the net annual cost to the council for recycling is just 10,500.
Worcester, which has a population of 98,000, is now looking to improve its recycling rate which was 6.5% when the inspectors visited earlier this year.
Robert Morland, head of policy and review at the city council said today that the authority will be improving its bring sites in terms of maintenance and layout and is looking to introduce kerbside collection between 2002 and 2004. The kerbside would be carried out with Severn Waste which has won a long-term contract with the county council.
The inspectors found that residents showed a high level
of willingness to recycle waste, and that a high proportion of
residents sorted their waste and took it to recycling centres.
The report states: “There is a great enthusiasm for household collection of recyclables, including garden waste. People are frustrated by lack of knowledge about recycling or lack of available facilities.”
The inspectors pointed to national recycling targets and remarked that Worcester “does not have an effective way of minimising waste and is therefore unable to reduce the quantity of waste being sent to landfill. Neither is it making progress on increasing recycling.”
Worcester’s actual performance in 1999/2000, saw it
recycle only 0.05 tonnes of waste per household, compared to the
national average of 0.08 tonnes.
On bring sites, the inspectors found that there are 15 bring sites located in Worcester (1 per 2,700 households). This compares to a national target is to provide at least 1 per 1,000 households with a more challenging recent target of 1 per 750 households. The inspectors state: “Users told us that access to most of the sites was difficult without a car as they are mainly situated on car parking areas.”
In 1999/2000, Worcester spent around 79,000 on recycling. The
city receives some 68,500 per year from the County Council as
Recycling Credits (for every tonne of household waste recycled,
there is a saving in disposal costs to the County as this is paid back
to the City as a credit). Therefore, the net cost of recycling to
Worcester is about 10,500.
Long-term
Within the local authority there is a view that the inspectors did not fully appreciate all the aspects with regard to the long-term contract agreed by the county council and its contractor.
There have been also delays at county level in winning planning permission for household waste sites and some differences of opinion between councillors in local districts and the county.
However, the council is acting soon to modernise its refuse collection service and will improve this by ending collection from the back door. It is also going to use its workforce on a four day a week basis to overcome the problem posed by Bank Holidays. Operatives will work the same hours over a four day periods. This will also free up time for vehicle maintenance.
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