The council has added a brown wheelie bin for garden waste to the green bin for dry recyclables and black bin for residual waste. The refuse bin is collected weekly and the brown and green bins are collected fortnightly. All three bins are 240 litres from Linpac.
The new green waste collection covers 18,000 households and the council has plans to expand this service across 54,000 households over the next two years.
Lynne Popham, a communications officer for the council, said that since the brown bin scheme was featured in the local paper she had an unprecedented response. She said: “It's mostly just people saying 'great, where's mine?' to which I have to tell them that we're rolling out the scheme in three phases and their phase will be soon. But I've had no negative responses, just queries. People are clamouring for them.”
The green bins for recyclables cover 60,000 households, with a further 6,000 using clear sacks for recyclables. This means 93% of Luton residents have access to kerbside collections. The materials collected in the green bins include paper, cardboard, plastic bottles, steel cans and aluminium cans and foil.
The council's recycling current recycling rate is 15% and its targets are 16% by next year and 24% by 2006. The council has estimated that over a third of the waste it send to landfill is garden waste, so introducing the green waste kerbside collection should help them reach their targets. However, in its information to residents the council stresses: “The brown bin is not meant as a replacement for people’s own compost bins, which should still be used.”
The council is expecting around 70 tonnes of green waste a week, during the summer with that figure dropping off during the winter months. The collected green waste will be taken to EQ Waste Management in Chelmsford to be made into compost and mulch.
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