The council, which achieved a 54.7% recycling rate in 2013/14 is hoping that changes to its collection system, which include an increased frequency of food waste collection, alongside improvements to its collection fleet, will help to boost its recycling performance over the next decade.
Changes are also being brought in due to an increase in the number of households in the borough since the council last carried out a route optimisation assessment of its collection arrangements in 2008 and the need to separate cardboard from green waste.
Councillors approved improvement plans at a meeting on Tuesday (April 14), having secured around £970,000 in capital funding from the Welsh Government to upgrade the fleet.
The proposed changes to the council’s collection regime were also approved, with Wrexham set to move to a weekly service for food waste and keep the current fortnightly system for residual waste and weekly collections for recycling. Councillors have also agreed to review switching to a smaller 140L residual waste bin in future, or to switch to three weekly collections.
Multi-stream
According to the council, the multi-stream vehicles which would be used on recycling collection rounds would be similar to those used in Conwy, Anglesey, Powys, Cheshire West and Chester and Belfast – and would cost around £115,000 each, with a two man crew needed for each.
The report states: “Currently, dry recyclables and food collections are carried out using a combination of combi and standard vehicles and refuse collection vehicles (RCVs). Each of the new multi stream collection options modelled include the use of modern resource recovery vehicles.
“Standard RRVs are usually mounted on 12 tonnes chassis and are able to load on either one or both sides as well as having an element of compaction for plastic, cans and cardboard.”
Residents currently use a green box to present metals, glass and plastics for recycling and a blue bag for paper. For organic waste some households have a green wheeled bin for both garden and food waste, while some households have a separate food waste caddy.
Following approval of the plans the council is to review the available revenue for the project and is due to begin procurement for vehicles and route optimisation from next month. The new service is expected to be phased in from March 2016.
Wrexham is part way through a 25-year contract signed with FCC (then WRG) in 2007 for the handling of the council’s residual and recyclable waste.
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