Recycling plans amended following feedback

Published by webmaster for Salisbury District Council in Communities

Following consultation with local people Salisbury District Council has amended plans to supply wheelie bins to all households for recyclable materials.

Salisbury district will be moving to an alternate weekly collection system which will see general waste collected one week and organic and recyclables the following week. However, changes have been made to the materials that can be placed in the recycling bin and to the schedule for introducing the new system.

All households will be given two wheelie bins – one for non-recyclable waste and one for recyclable waste. The original scheme envisaged the recycling bin being used for garden waste. However, letters, telephone calls and e-mails from residents, as well as information from the People’s Voice panel, indicated that most people preferred a mixed cardboard and plastic collection.

The change requires an investment in new facilities by the county council and Hills (The county council’s waste recycling contractor) to handle co-mingled  plastic and cardboard. As it will take some months to set up these facilities the planned launch of the alternate weekly collection will be put back from April to October 2007.

The original schedule also allowed for the launch to be the beginning of a phased two-year introduction of the scheme. But in view of the demand, it has been decided to speed up the introduction so that it is achieved one, rather than two, years.

The council had also planned to phase-in the extension of the black box scheme over 2008/9 and 2009/10. However, the council has asked the Wiltshire Waste Partnership to consider providing some additional funding to enable the black box scheme to be extended as a single launch in 2008/9.

Black boxes take glass bottles & jars, cans, paper, foil and textiles and currently cover about half the households in the district, mainly in urban areas.

In addition to these changes, all households will be offered an optional garden waste collection service using wheeled bins for an annual fee of £26 per bin.

Cllr Dennis Brown, Salisbury District Council portfolio holder for Environment and Transport said “These measures should have a clear impact on our recycling performance and enable us to achieve our targets earlier than expected.”

Cllr Richard Britton, Leader of Salisbury District Council said; “We have listened to what people have told us and we have been able to respond with a number of changes which, I believe, both simplify the system and meet people’s needs much more effectively.”

Ends

Press release issued: September 14 2006