The decision comes as part of a renegotiation with waste contractor Veolia, which could see the firm continue refuse and recycling collections in the borough until August 2022.
Under the extension option, refuse would continue to be collected on a fortnightly basis while separate weekly collections of food waste would also be preserved.
However, dry recycling will be reduced from a weekly to fortnightly service – with collections alternating between mixed card and paper one week and mixed glass, cans and plastics the next.
In order to provide additional capacity, the council will replace green recycling boxes for card and paper with a new wheeled bin – which would also provide ‘protection from rain’.
A report of recommendations agreed by the council’s Policy and Finance Committee reasons that recycling reprocessors ‘increasingly insist’ on receiving dry paper and card – which is important to obtaining a ‘good market price’.
The council also claims that the new bins will be ‘sturdier’ than the current boxes, which currently need replacing for a fifth of householders every year at an estimated cost of £120,000.
Fleet
The report goes on to highlight the future need to replace its current 14-strong fleet of waste collection vehicles, which was constructed by Veolia to offer source-segregation of different materials.
However, the council argues there is ‘still nothing on the market’ to replicate the vehicles – which cost £70,000 each to put on the road in 2009. While it is claimed there is no way of obtaining the current costs, the council believes it will not be financially viable to reproduce the fleet without a service change.
Speaking to letsrecycle.com, councillor David Cunningham, lead member for environment and transport at Kingston, explained that the council had also deemed collection crews to be at risk from ‘manually handling’ the paper and card containers.
He added that new roadside collections would mean the wheeled bins could be tipped automatically, while workers will load the boxes of tin, glass and plastics into slave bins, which will be tipped into the vehicles at the end of each street.
“Downside”
Mr Cunningham said: “There is one downside which we accept which may be a need for more space for recyclables between collections, but we have a full year to determine this service because it won’t start until January 2016. There will also be roads that won’t fit into this system and we will have to account for these.”
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But councillor Hilary Gander, Liberal Democrat lead member for environment, argued the reduction in collections would lead to a drop in the council’s recycling rate with more materials going in the residual waste bin.
Ms Gander said: “It will make it a lot more difficult for people who will have to store these materials for two weeks rather than one. They already have overflowing boxes by the time the current collections come round.
“The council this will save millions over several years, but if people don’t recycle as much we will have larger landfill costs to deal with. We had an opportunity to extend this contract for two years and we will still would have saved money.”
Under the current terms of its contract with Veolia, Kingston council has until February 27 in order to modify the length of the extension before the two-year extension already agreed with Veolia becomes the default position.
In light of this urgency, the council has not referred the matter back to the Infrastructure, Projects and Contracts Committee – which may not be able to convene in time to discuss the service changes as some opponents to the changes had wished.
For a more views on recycling in the capital, book onto the ‘London Conference 2015’ which takes place on February 12 at Holborn Bars in London and is hosted by letsrecycle.com. For more information, click here.
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