Brent prepares to introduce compulsory recycling

The tougher regulation on recycling, which will begin from August 4, comes as Brent attempts to encourage the borough's 80,000 households to lift its recycling rate from around 25% and avoid adding to rising landfill prices, which currently costs the council £7 million a year.

The plans, which were originally announced in February (see letsrecycle.com story) would see residents failing to recycle eight key materials – paper, glass, metals (such as food and drinks tins), plastic bottles, textiles, shoes, batteries and engine oil – facing a fine of up to £1,000.

Council leader Paul Lorber said: “We all have to recycle more or the cost will be passed onto local people. And recycling will help us preserve the planet for future generations.

“Two-thirds of what people throw away can be recycled, and it's easy to do using the green box scheme, so compulsory recycling should help us make a substantial improvement. The early signs are good – more and more people are getting involved,” he added.

Fines

However, fines would not be introduced straightaway, and a spokesman for the council told letsrecycle.com that residents would have their recycling monitored for three weeks to check participation with those failing to comply being visited by the council and given information on how to participate.

They would then be monitored for a further three weeks and visited again if they still had made no attempt to recycle, only after they continually ignored council encouragement would a fine be used.

The spokesman explained: “We wouldn't introduce a fine immediately. The emphasis is on getting people to recycle more not to hand out fines, what we want to do is educate and encourage.”

Publicity

Fearing that Brent's landfill bill could reach £10 million by 2011 if recycling rates don't improve, the council has begun a publicity campaign to encourage people to take part and provided a further 733 new free green recycling boxes last week, a rise from 134 ordered by the public in the week before the introduction date was announced.

The scheme had been planned to be introduced in June but the scale of the project, which will incur ‘significant' start-up costs, means that it had to be delayed. Brent made sure to consult the public before introducing the scheme, with 78% of the 770 residents who responded to the consultation supporting the proposal.