LAWR

May 2015 Local Authority Waste & Recycling 13 WASTE COLLECTION deliver weekly services to residents but for the first time we now must ask everyone to use the correct service for the right materials." And if they don't, the council ends up paying twice to collect the same material. This is what's happening with food waste, with a fair portion still ending up in the residual bin. At a recent conference in Edinburgh, Baird suggested that there remained a basic lack of willingness to participate amongst some residents. "It's a big problem," he noted. Media headlines In October, Bury Council also moved from a fortnightly to a three-weekly collection of black bag waste. Now, household rubbish (grey bins) is collected every three weeks, recyclables (blue and green bins) every three weeks, and food waste (brown bins) is collected every two weeks. The move was prompted by a desire to increase recycling and reduce residual capacity. Like Falkirk, there have been challenges – not least from the headlines the proposals created. Bury is one of nine authorities that form part of the Greater Manchester Waste Disposal Authority. Its neighbours, Stockport and Trafford, had already gone down the route of restricting residual capacity by introducing 140l residual waste bins, which are emptied fortnightly. Head of waste management Glenn Stuart explains that capacity restriction was "one of the options we were originally looking at very closely. It was an option we favoured for a long time, but there was a capital cost of about £1m in replacing all the existing 240l residual waste bins with the smaller 140l bins. " As always, residents realise that we are taking a positive step change that first and foremost requires their support " On tRiAL: thRee-WeekLy cOLLectiOns – Bury and Falkirk have both gone down the three-weekly collection route for residual waste. It's taken hard work and extensive communications campaigns, but there are clear signs of improvements – and savings. "So, that led us to think 'why can't we reduce the collection frequency of the existing 240l bins and move that to three-weekly?' By doing this we offer 80l of residual waste capacity [per week] to households. Whereas Stockport and Trafford with a 140l bin are offering 70l. So, we were not restricting capacity as far as [our neighbours], but what caught the headlines was the three-weekly collection frequency," he adds. Waste reductions Six months on, though, and the scheme is proving successful, according to Stuart. Statistics were released recently comparing the tonnages collected for each waste stream, month by month from October 2014 to February 2015. The introduction of the three-weekly service has led to a reduction of around 500 tonnes of material sent to landfill per month (on average) compared to the same period prior to the change. Overall, residual waste is down by 2,452 tonnes (over the five month period). Results also show that recycling rates have increased and the council is on track to save around £860,000 in avoided disposal costs (see box below). However, Stuart acknowledges that it hasn't been easy. "I am not naive enough to suggest that it is working famously across the whole borough, but the vast majority of residents have coped," he says, adding: "Bury is a typical post- industrial northern town. It has lots of terraced streets, with quite wide back alleys, which vehicles can access. However, we do have some issues there. The bins are out of sight and out of mind. Bins are left outside the back gates and they are often left out permanently. On the other hand, we have always suffered environmental issues in those areas, with litter and fly-tipping." Stuart dismisses critics who claim that three-weekly collections increase fly-tipping. In fact, he says the amount of fly-tipping has fallen in Bury, whilst the number of requests for recycling bins has increased. Since July 2014, there have been around 2,000 requests for green bins, 2,300 requests for blue bins and 4,500 requests for brown ones. Stuart says Bury was the first authority in England to take the step; he expects more to follow its lead. Or perhaps go further. Following successful trials of three- weekly collections, some councils are considering four-weekly services. Falkirk is once again at the head of the queue. "Half of the non-recyclable waste bin still contains recyclate or food waste so there remains scope to improve all the services," says Baird. "Continual commitment to recycling collections can't continue in the current format and all services must be used to the Recycling Residual waste Cost savings Other advantages Challenges Bury Council ~50% (Feb '15) ~41% (Feb '14) 62,542t (Oct '14 – Feb '15) £860k (predicted) 6Fly-tipping 5Bin requests Media headlines Falkirk Council 58% (2015 estimated) 53% (2014) 6400t/month £385k/year 5 Food waste recycling 28% residual remains food waste

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