Speaking last week at the Recycling Advisory Group Scotland (RAGS) seminar in Falkirk, Robert Carson of West Lothian Council explained the council’s scheme which sees a four bin collection system with a fortnightly refuse collection and a monthly collection of green waste. Paper, plastic and cans are also collected from the kerbside on a monthly basis.
The trial has been introduced to increase the amount of material recycled by West Lothian Council without having to increase refuse collection and disposal costs. The one-year pilot runs until next March when if considered successful it will be rolled-out across West Lothian. In its first six months the scheme has achieved a participation rate of 91% and a recycling rate of 36% with 60% of bio-degradable municipal waste recycled. So far, 6.75 kg of waste is recycled per household each month.
The council received 263,000 from the Scottish Executive to implement the scheme, which includes 81,000 from the Strategic Waste Fund. The project is carried out in partnership with Schaefer, Shanks and West Lothian Recycling. West Lothian Recycling collect the material and take it to Shanks’ MRF in Blochairn for sorting.
Under the scheme, the council supplied residents with three bins, one for refuse, one for green waste and another for paper, plastic and cans. Households were also given a small kitchen bin for the collection of kitchen waste.
Costs
Mr Carson said that the reason the council opted for a four bin system was because it didn’t want to suffer an increase in collection costs. He said: “The council uses standard vehicles so there are no extra costs. We have one vehicle to cover all areas.”
The green waste is collected in a brown Compostainer which is specially designed for the collection of bio-degradable waste. The Compostainer has grids at the top and bottom and holes in the side to let air through so that the green waste starts to compost before it is collected and means that the bin can be emptied monthly.
The council also supplied residents with blue bins which were originally for newspapers and magazines but after three months the council added plastic, cans and cardboard to the collection.
Residents were given a detailed outline of the scheme as well as calendars which told them which week each bin would be collected. The council also held public meetings to discuss the pilot and made sure that there were no changes to residents’ traditional refuse collection dates to cause added problems.
Mr Carson said: “Householders view the scheme as being successful. Our helpdesk received 8,000 calls in a two-month period and we have only had a couple of complaints with people saying that they had nowhere to put the bins. Some households now share a bin, so that one has a blue one and their neighbour a brown one.”
Mr Carson added: “We now need to run the scheme over the winter when we expect the percentage of garden waste to fall off a bit.” The council predicts that the amount of waste recycled will fall over the winter to 32% with 53% of bio-degradable municipal waste recycled which is equivalent to 5.95kg per household.
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