North Lincolnshire sets its sights on 40% recycling rate

The council introduced alternate weekly collections on a trial involving 16,000 homes in the Isle of Axhome and Scunthorpe last summer.

Around 10,000 homes in Axhome were introduced to the scheme from scratch while in Scunthorpe the residents have been having a brown bin collected on alternate weeks for several years.

North Lincolnshire has installed a new 2.3 million composting site to cater for green waste from its new collections

Residents on the scheme were given a green box for the collection of glass and cans, a brown organic bin and a bag for the collection of textiles. This was on top of a blue box which the council has already been running for the collection of paper.

Sarah Williamson, spokesperson for North Lincolnshire, said: “Early indications suggest that the combination of all these schemes has allowed residents to recycle over 40% of their waste.”

North Lincolnshire now plans to implement the scheme to a further 24,000 homes by July 2005. The council has to recycle 24% of its waste by 2005/06, it is currently recycling 20% of its waste, it is one of the top 15 unitary councils in the country.

Blue boxes

According to Ms Williamson the blue box scheme is now available to almost 100% of the 153,000 residents in the area. Ms Williamson said: “We are yet to supply the scheme to the high rise flats in the area, but the council is currently investigating how these households can be included on the scheme.”

In February of this year North Lincolnshire opened a new composting site at Flixborough. The 2.3 million plant will take in about 25,000 tonnes of waste each year, collected from residents' brown bins.

The plant will also take green waste collected at the eight civic amenity sites across the unitary area and any grass collected at North Lincolnshire's parks.