Oldham already runs a traditional kerbside collection for recyclables and has a recycling rate just over 4%. The recent clean-up collections target some of these materials, such as card, but also larger items including white goods and furniture.
The “community clean-ups” have been introduced following the introduction of a charge of 10 to remove bulky household waste from April this year which saw the number of people using the previously free service fall sharply. The charges were introduced in a bid to save 75,000 in the waste management budget.
A report yesterday to the council's Operational Services Committee explained that there was a need to provide ways for the public to get rid of unwanted items “in a more environmentally sensitive way than outright disposal to landfill.”
Each of the kerbside community clean-ups took place on a Saturday and were run in conjunction with a local company, Britannia Import Export, and re-use organisation “Don't Dump Donate”. White goods and furniture are among waste targeted for re-use.
Four community clean-up trials have been carried out and results include 43% reuse/recycle of 20.2 tonnes collected in Roudthorn and 37% of 28.7 tonnes collected in Derker.
On the negative side, figures for April and May show that while 35% less bulky waste was taken away for disposal (mainly because large numbers of people declined to pay for the service) there has been a 13% increase in the amount of domestic waste disposed of through the refuse collection service and an increase of 12% in the waste taken to the civic amenity sites.
Mike Street, operational services officer, said that it was too early to tell whether these are permanent trends which can be related to the charge on the bulky waste service. The council says that early indications are that the introduction of a charge for the removal of bulky waste has not led to an increase in the level of fly tipping.
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