And, the council is improving its service with the addition of three new recycling collection vehicles, new collection boxes for residents and a prize draw to incentivise recycling.
The city has been seen as a benchmark for poor recycling performances in England, with the council prioritising other areas for its budget. But fresh council resolve saw new recycling services introduced in September 2003 and turned multi-material in March this year (see letsrecycle.com story).
Starting from a recycling rate of just 2%, the city council as well as its contractor Abitibi-Consolidated Recycling Europe and community sector work, have boosted its performance to a 7% rate for the recycling of household waste. The city's government-set target is 18% by 2005/06.
About 160,000 households are now offered a multi material kerbside recycling service using purple containers, and of these the council believes about 134,000 homes are regularly recycling.
Councillor Richard Oglethorpe, executive member for green issues, said: “The number of people using our recycling service has increased by a staggering 278% since April 2003 and every month this goes up.”
Incentive
The city is hoping to introduce a weekly prize draw to further encourage its residents to recycle. All households taking part in the kerbside scheme will be entered into the draw after Christmas, and could win 100 prizes each week.
A spokeswoman for the council said: “This scheme has been tried in other councils and has proved quite successful. It will probably be introduced after Christmas which is probably a good time. Our residents can get rid of their Christmas rubbish and win 100 at the same time.”
Liverpool currently collects glass bottles and cans in a purple box, paper in a purple sack and textiles in a white sack which is sent to the Salvation Army. About 238 tonnes of waste is recycled a week.
Grant
With the help of a 126,000 grant from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Liverpool has this month purchased three new vehicles, which will be used exclusively for the collection of recyclables.
Cllr Oglethorpe said: “We are being given a government grant which will help us expand our service and help us to further improve the way we work.
“We are buying more boxes and increasing the number of recycling lorries so even more people in Liverpool can get into the recycling habit, which has got to be great news for the city and the environment,” he explained.
With the aid of the government grant, Liverpool has also ordered boxes for the second phase of its kerbside roll-out, for flats and businesses. The council hopes to have this phase rolled out by the end of 2005.
Plastic
The council has said that it intends to expand into plastic recycling over the next two years. “The most requested item to be recycled is plastic bottles and we hope to have a service in place to recycle plastic and metal over the next two years. At the moment we have no end market for certain plastics and metals, we are looking into where to take them,” a spokeswoman explained.
The council is also looking into the collection of household and car batteries as well as a new service for garden and kitchen waste over the course of next year, though these ideas are still in their infancy.
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