The city council is aiming to complete the roll-out by spring 2007, which begins with 15,000 homes in the central part of Oxford receiving a green box for glass, textiles, newspapers and higher grade paper, and a blue box for plastics, cans, cardboard and telephone directories.
 Oxford is sending its green waste to nearby composting firm Agrivert for treatment |
The new fortnightly multi-material dry recyclable scheme comes following the expansion of Oxford's pilot green waste collection service in October (see letsrecycle.com story).
Expanded area by area, the alternate weekly scheme is also providing homes with a wheeled bin for non-recyclable waste, with old bins being collected for recycling where possible.
Oxford city council is aiming to push its current 19% recycling rate past the 40% mark
with the new scheme.
Climate change
Cllr Jean Fooks, executive member for a cleaner city, said: “This is a significant moment for Oxford – a big step in our campaign to improve our record on recycling, dump less in landfill and play our part in protecting the environment, reducing climate change and avoiding big landfill taxes for wasting too much re-usable material.”
Cllr Fooks said she was confident that Oxford residents would get behind the scheme and that there would be an “instant improvement in our recycling rate”.
She said a team of staff were manning a telephone hotline to help residents make sense of the new system. Residents will also be able to sign up to a special text messaging service to remind them when to put out their recycling and waste containers (see letsrecycle.com story).
Those households that cannot cope with a wheeled bin are being given a supply of sacks to collect waste that cannot be recycled.
New 55-litre recycling boxes are being provided by Leeds-based container supplier Straight plc. Charlie Bartfield, Straight senior account manager, said special labels were being produced for each box to show what can be recycled in each box.
Green waste
Under the expanded green waste scheme, some 43,000 homes are to have their green waste collected in tough green re-usable bags, with the city council signing up local composting firm Agrivert to process the material.
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Oxford City Council aims to increase the composting of Green Waste from under 1000 tonnes a year to over 4000 tonnes, with the Radford-based composting company treating grass cuttings, leaves, plants and tree clippings from homes in the city into a high grade compost that will either be bagged or sold to agricultural outlets.
Harry Waters, sales and marketing director of Agrivert, said: “We are delighted to be working for Oxford city council on this scheme, which will help members of the public embrace composting as a viable method of green waste recycling.
He added: “Local farmers will also benefit from the fact that over 90% of the waste will become high grade organic fertiliser that can be spread on their land, helping to dramatically reduce the reliance on chemical fertilisers.”
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