New figures released by South Gloucestershire Council indicate that their new weekly kerbside recycling collections, which began in June 2017, are having a positive effect.
An additional 1,279 tonnes of recycling has been collected, which is a 14 percent increase, including an extra 600 tonnes of paper and cardboard, an extra 364 tonnes of food waste and an extra 315 tonnes made up of plastics, cans and textiles.
Weekly collections mean that householders don’t have to store as much material between collections and the council saves on the financial cost of disposing of black bin waste (not to mention the benefits for the environment).
Waste that cannot be recycled is disposed of either as ‘energy from waste’ or into landfill. With the council having to pay at least £101 to dispose of every tonne of black bin waste in this way, the extra 1,270 tonnes of recycling has allowed it to save around £130,000 since weekly collections began.
The council’s Cabinet member for communities and tourism, Cllr Heather Goddard, said:
“This is fantastic news – I am so pleased that the changes we have made to make recycling easier for residents are paying off. Our communities deserve a real pat on the back for their efforts.”
“Our new waste strategy is all about reducing the waste we send to landfill, which is expensive and no good for our environment. Before we launched our new strategy, 52 percent of waste put into our black bins could have been recycled from home. This first response to making recycling easier is very encouraging.”
“The next step is to reduce the size of people’s waste bins, which will start to happen in the new year. From 15th January we will start exchanging the 240-litre black bins for non-recyclable waste with 140-litre bins, to reduce recyclable waste ending up in the black bins and achieve our recycling target of 50 percent by 2020. It is clear now that the pressure on those bins will be far less, thanks to residents’ recycling efforts.”
“There have been a number of other initiatives as part of the new approach, including making allowances for larger families to have extra black bin capacity and introducing separate bags for disposable nappy waste to help families with young children manage their non-recyclable waste.”
“The people of South Gloucestershire have really risen to this challenge and I hope they will recycle a bumper load of Christmas wrapping and boxes having had a lovely holiday season.”
• For more information, visit www.southglos.gov.uk/sortit
This article originally appeared in the January 2018 issue of the Bradley Stoke Journal news magazine (on page 3). The magazine is delivered FREE, EVERY MONTH, to 9,500 homes in Bradley Stoke, Little Stoke and Stoke Lodge. Phone 01454 300 400 to enquire about advertising or leaflet insertion.
