West Devon gears up for recycling service change

West Devon borough council has outlined plans to start distributing additional kerbside boxes and food waste caddies to residents next week ahead of the launch of its new waste and recycling collection service.

The new service will come into operation at this month (September 27) for households in the north of the county, with those in the south being brought under the new arrangements from October 18. The service will cover all 24,000 households in the local authority area once it becomes fully operational.

Under the new offering, residents of the West Country local authority will receive collection of all plastic bottles at the kerbside for the first time, along with weekly food waste collections being made available for the whole borough. Food waste collections are currently only available to some households.

The council is also expanding the range of dry recyclables it collects at the kerbside weekly to include mobile phones, textiles, batteries and spectacles.

Refuse collections will be switched to an alternate weekly system, with cardboard and bulky waste being collected by its new contractor Focsa on the alternating weeks to the residual waste.

Households already use a green box system to collect dry recyclables but will be issued with an extra box to account for the wider stream of material. In addition, they will receive a kitchen caddy for food waste and a larger caddy in which to place material for it to be collected at the kerbside.

The launch of the new service comes in the wake of the council awarding its existing contractor, Spanish-owned waste and recycling firm Focsa Services, a seven-year contract to deliver waste and recycling collections, as well as street cleansing and public toilets cleaning, in February 2010 (see letsrecycle.com story).

Savings

The council claims the new service will save it £180,000 in its first year, which was partly achieved by the presence of “favourable market conditions” during the tender process. Further savings are also expected to be achieved by switching residual waste collections to alternate weeks due to fewer vehicles needed on collection rounds each week.

The council aims to realise savings of £260,000 from the second year – contributing to around £1.7 million worth of savings over the life of the contract. It also aims to save money by having fewer vehicle passes, with food waste being collected on the same collection vehicle as dry recyclables.

Delivery of the new containers is also being subsidised by money from Devon county council, the Waste & Resources Action Programme, the waste infrastructure capital grant and the council's local area agreement.

In addition to the £1.7 million savings the council aims to achieve on the operational side of the service, it is also hopeful of cutting landfill costs by £450,000 over the course of seven years. The council claims that the change in service could also help boost its recycling rate from its current 43% to at least 54%.

Commenting on the new service, councillor Robert Sampson, chairman of the council's environment and community committee, said: “We are regularly asked by our householders to improve the amount of materials that can be recycled – particularly plastics – and we strongly believe that this new service fits the bill.

“We are extending the service borough wide so that all residents will now receive the same level of service. We will be achieving our landfill diversion and recycling targets and reaping the environmental benefits whilst making considerable costs savings.”