- Landfill and recycling rubbish to be collected kerbside on same day each week
- More waste to go to recycling, so less sorting required
The council is to change the way you recycle if you live in one of the 140,000 households affected by their proposed new measures for kerbside services which will begin on 1 September.
Those affected are households who currently have wheeled bins. It does not affect you if you have a communal bin.
The Environment Committee hopes that these changes will make it easier for you to sort your rubbish into recycling, landfill or general waste, garden waste or glass. Residents will be given a new smaller 140L wheelie bin for general waste as well as a recycling box for all of their recycling waste instead of blue and red bins for different types of recycling waste in certain (but not all) houses in defined areas.
A new type of vehicle with separate sections for removing the different kinds of waste will collect your rubbish on one day, making it easier to remember when you need to put your wheelie bin out, but for the meantime separate vehicles will continue to be used for garden, food waste and landfill. The council say there will be no more vehicles than there are at present, but three vehicles will be used on each street on collection day. It is clearly hoped that as new vehicles are introduced the collection will be simplified. The council plan to do their own rubbish collection from October 2015 at the end of the present contract with a third party company and they will be acquiring new vehicles which the council say will be more suitable.
More recycling will also be possible as a greater variety of items can now be put in the new mixed recycling box. Plastics and small electrical items will now be included.
So what will you have if you live in these areas?
- New 140L wheelie bin for Landfill waste
- Existing wheelie bin to be used for mixed recycling
- Blue box for glass
- Food bin
- Garden recycling bin
And yes, this means that you will have a smaller bin for landfill waste, but then that is what the council is trying to achieve in the first place: less waste to landfill. The cost of sending waste to landfill increases all the time, and is not good news for the environment.
As you may imagine these changes will take some time to roll out and the council have suggested that it might take as long as nine months to replace all the red boxes for all of these houses, and to encourage the residents to do the recycling in the first place.
The new arrangements will be tried out for 8 weeks and then residents can make representations to the council on an individual basis to have their service tailored to their needs. For example if there is simply no room to store an additional wheelie bin then different solutions such as shared bins will be used.
The council is following the lead taken by Fife Council who have introduced a four bin service which they are in the middle of rolling out to their residents.
Green bin
- paper
- cardboard
- plastic bottles, pots tubs and trays
- metal food and drink cans
- empty aerosols
- clean foil
Blue box
- Glass Bottles and jars
- Batteries in a small clear bag
- Textiles
- small electrical items such as toasters and hairdryers
Click to access Teaser_FINAL-2-1.pdf
The council has produced a Waste and Recycling strategy which outlines how recycling will increase to 75% by 2020. They say that the newer smaller bins for general waste are a way of achieving that.
In January 2011 plastic bottles and household batteries were added to the kerbside recycling collection and food waste collections have been introduced for all properties.
Managed weekly collections have been in place since September 2012 and these have contributed to further reductions in landfill waste and increased rates of recycling. This has not been a painless process and around 24,000 complaints were made to the council in the first year of operation regarding missed collections.
The new further increases in recycling are to come from the introduction of this new enhanced kerbside recycling service, coupled with improvements in communal recycling and the promotion of greater participation in the available schemes.
This is only one way of removing household waste from your home. You also have the option of taking your own rubbish to the recycling centre nearest you or adding any garden rubbish to your own compost heap.
You will receive an introductory flyer soon followed by an information pack which will include a collection calendar. Posters and social media updates will then be used to inform you of the new arrangements affecting you, but environmental officers will also be knocking on doors to try and help residents with the scheme. Briefing sessions will be arranged for community councils and residents associations.
If you wish to retain your red box then you may do so, otherwise the council will arrange to take them away. Some families may require bigger bins for their landfill waste and the council is open to requests for these on an individual basis according to need being proved. It is hoped that this more relaxed approach will suit more residents. However if you wish to have a larger recycling bin then the council will provide this to you without any need being proved!
The council have produced a list of the areas where these collection arrangements will be put in place in Phase 1. You should note that it will only be some households in these areas who will be affected:-
Alnwickhill
Blackhall
Burdiehouse
Craigentinny
Craigleith
Drylaw
Gilmerton
Goldenacre
Hyvot Bank
Joppa
Kaimes
Leith
Liberton
Lochend
Muirhouse
Niddrie
Orchard Brae
Piershill
Prestonfield
Restalrig
Southhouse
The Inch
Trinity
Wardie
Warriston
Willowbrae
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