Vale Royal unveils new kerbside service for 2004

Funded with part of a DEFRA grant as well as the council budget, the service will be made available to all 53,000 households in the Cheshire borough, run by the council's waste management contractor SITA UK.

The borough currently recycles about 13% of the 53,000 tonnes of municipal waste it collects each year, meeting their 10% target for 2003-04. When the new service begins at the start of the next financial year, it will be key to reaching the council's next target of 18% by 2005-06.

Cllr Malcolm Gaskill, lead councillor for waste services, commented: “Two public consultations on the Cheshire Household Waste Strategy and several surveys have indicated that people are willing to recycle if they are provided with the facilities to recycle on their doorstep. This new scheme will make it easy for every household in the borough to recycle.”

He added: “The public's support will be vital in ensuring that the scheme is a success and that costs are minimised.”

Straight Recycling are supplying the council with boxes, which will be used by residents for glass, cans and textiles. Householders will also be given reusable bags, supplied by Glopac, for their newspapers and magazines. All households with gardens will be given brown wheeled bins for their garden waste, provided by MGB Titan and fitted with microchips. Residents already have green wheeled bins for their residual waste.

Alternate
Household waste collections and recycling collections will be switched to alternate weeks when the new service begins. The council believes the service could collect up to 16,000 tonnes of material each year, although it is unsure how the alternate weekly collections will affect tonnages.

Paper from the collections will go to nearby Shotton Paper mill in North Wales, helping to feed the UK's largest recycling line there. The council is currently finalising arrangements for glass, cans and garden waste.

Cllr Mark Stocks, lead councillor for environmental policy explained: “The council is negotiating processing contracts which will positively impact the local environment. From April all the paper collected under the new scheme will be sent to nearby Shotton Paper Mill, where it will be pulped and cleaned in order to create newsprint for tomorrow's newspaper.”