One of Englands largest local authorities, Manchester city council, will move to fortnightly residual household waste collections next week (June 13) as part of a waste service overhaul which it hopes will save it 12 million over the next three years.
The change represents one of the highest profile shifts from weekly to fortnightly collections to date, and comes despite the Department for communities and local government and communities secretary Eric Pickles in particular – encouraging councils to maintain a weekly waste collection service (see letsrecycle.com story).
The issue of collection frequency is also expected to be addressed in next weeks Waste Review, with some suggestion that the government will make money available to councils who choose to run a weekly waste collection service. However, it is understood that this money is likely to be used to incentivise food waste collections (see letsrecycle.com story).
Manchesters move is being accompanied by a change from fortnightly to weekly collections of food waste. This involves the waste stream either being collected in a green wheeled bin alongside garden waste or using a small green bin. All households have been given a kitchen caddy with compostable bags to initially store food waste in.
The council claimed that the combined effect of these changes would increase its household waste recycling rate from the 18.8% recorded in 2009/10 to more than 39%.
As a result it expects to avoid multi-million pound landfill tax bills, which it said would amount of 2 million in 2010/11, 4.5 million in 2011/12 and 6.1 million in 2013/14, if it failed to increase its recycling rate.
The local authority also noted that the approach it was adopting was already used by the countrys 30 best-performing councils. The change will be rolled out across South Manchester from June 13 and across North Manchester from July 11.
Overhaul
The need for an overhaul was highlighted by councillor Nigel Murphy, Manchester city councils executive member for the environment.
He said: Manchester residents have been keen to take up the recycling services we have introduced over the last few years, and the feedback from residents is they now throw so little rubbish away their black bins aren’t full by the end of the week.
“However, we recognise this may be a problem for some larger families and we are willing to work with them.
Councillor Murphy added that the council could simply not afford to pay the 12 million landfill tax bill it would be hit with if it did not improve its recycling rates.
This is because Manchester city council has had to reduce its spending by 109 million in 2010/11 and will have to make savings of 170 million, or 25% of its whole budget, next year.
Shared bins
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As part of the overhaul, the council has also made a number of other changes which it began rolling out last month, including:
Replacing residual waste and recycling bins in more densely populated parts of the city including Cheetham, Gorton, Moss Side, Harpurhey, Moston and Longsight with large shared communal containers;
Charging for more than two bulky waste collections per year, with a 20 fee for each additional collection;
Limiting residents to one black residual waste bin per household, unless there are more than six residents or an occupant with a medical condition that creates additional waste;
Not collecting side-waste;
Charging 25 for replacement residual waste wheeled bins;
Not carrying out missed-collection revisits.
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