Residual waste in the North Wales borough will instead be collected on a three-weekly rota from autumn 2016, with a pilot scheme to assess the benefits of a four-weekly system to follow once the new system has been rolled out.
The four-week rounds had initially been approved by the county borough council’s scrutiny committee earlier this month in a bid to reduce estimated disposal costs of £2.9 million per year.
The authority is already in line to achieve 60% in 2015/16, 2% over the statutory target of 58% set by the Welsh Government.
However, recycling officers now predict that Conwy’s recycling rate is at risk of ‘reaching a plateau’ meaning it will not meet more ambitious 70% target set for 2024/25.
Conwy county borough council finally reached its decision after a protracted debate this afternoon, in which the majority of cabinet members appeared reluctant to fully back a four-weekly system.
Residents
There is understood to be opposition to the scheme from some householders in the area, with 45 people from Kinmel Bay having signed a petition against the proposals according to councillor Bill Darwin.
When surveyed last year, around 41.2% of respondent householders in Conwy initially noted that they could manage if the wheelie bin was collected less often. However 55.4% of respondents noted that they could manage if separate nappy collections, additional Christmas collection and extra bins for larger families were considered (see letsrecycle.com story).
Councillor Ronnie Hughes, deputy leader of the council, called four-weekly collections “a bridge too far” – proposing instead a three-weekly service with a review after six months.
But councillor Dave Cowans, who holds the council’s Highways Environment & Sustainability Porfolio, argued it was time to “stop wasting money” and voiced concerns that the authority would find it hard to identify future savings by not adopting the measure.
It was finally recommended by the council chief executive that Conwy move to a three-weekly system, with four-weekly collections to be trialled across a “significant area”.
Timetable
While no timetable has been set for introducing a four-weekly service at a later date, cllr Cowans stated that the issue will most likely be revisited in 2017.
Prior to the vote, he said: “There will be an identical report this time next year, and I will be tasked again to find more money. We will be revisiting it following the three-weekly collections which we would hope to roll out between August to September 2016.”
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