The Worcestershire district, which includes Kidderminster, rolled out the kerbside service to its first 9,000 homes in September. The second and third phases will take place in November 2003 and January 2004, with the aim of reaching 38,000 households by February 2004.
Funding for the 660,110 scheme came from the second round of DEFRA's 140m Waste Minimisation and Recycling Fund.
 Wyre Forest's recycling scheme will cater for 38,000 households by February 2004 |
Two lidded 55-litre boxes, black and green, are being provided for each household. Paper, newspapers, magazines and textiles will go into the black boxes, while glass packaging, cans and aerosols as well as aluminium foil and plastic bottles, will go into the green boxes.
Steve Brant, the council's environment and cleansing services manager, said: “When delivered to the households, the kerbside boxes give a sense of purpose to residents. By filling them with recyclable materials, they are able to see for themselves that a large amount of normal homes' waste, up to 50 – 60% of a domestic bin, can be recycled. To date, the scheme has seen 90% of residents actively participating by regularly filling the 55-litre boxes.”
The boxes have been provided by locally-based container suppliers Egbert H Taylor & Company, which has many employees who will actually be residents taking part in the new recycling programme.
Alston Taylor, a director at the Worcestershire firm, said: “This is a special order for Taylor – many of our 200 employees live locally in the Wyre Forest district, and it's not every day they get to use the fruit of their labours in their own homes.”
As the kerbside service swings into operation, households will see collections of non-recyclable waste from wheeled bins switched from a weekly to a fortnightly service.
The council hopes the changes to its waste management service will help it to get from its current 8% household waste recycling rate to 10% by the end of this year, 18% by 2005-06 and 25% by 2007-08.
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