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A New Recycling and Landfill Waste Collection Service
A New Recycling and Landfill Waste Collection Service
Recycling in Kingston is about to get easier...
Kingston Council is responding to an overwhelming demand from residents for recycling to be made easier by introducing a new and improved recycling collection service.
The new service will be rolled-out to houses and converted flats across the borough during Autumn 2008.
Some key facts...
- Food waste (cooked and uncooked) will be collected on a weekly basis for composting.
- A wide range of recyclable materials including paper, glass jars and bottles, cardboard, newspapers and magazines, liquid food and drink cartons, plastic bottles, tins and cans and will also be collected every week.
- Landfill waste (refuse that cannot currently be recycled) will be collected once a fortnight. Houses and converted flats will be provided with a wheelie bin to store their landfill waste safely and securely.
- The new service will be similar to the trial that has been running in the Berrylands area and has seen the amount of waste sent to landfill cut by nearly 50%.
- A massive reduction in the amount of waste the Borough sends to landfill is required if we are to avoid heavy fines and landfill taxes – so the new service will be kind on the environment as well as kind on residents’ pockets.
- The new and improved recycling service will not be limited to houses and converted flats: purpose-built flats are also set to benefit. A combination of mini recycling centres and a door-to-door collection service will be used.
- If you live in a house or converted flat, you will be sent an information pack a few weeks before your road is moved over to the new service. If you live in a purpose-built flat, you will be contacted separately over the coming 12 months and asked what type of recycling collection service you think would best suite the needs of your block.
In more detail....
On 11 March 2008, the Council’s Executive Committee appointed Veolia Environmental Services as the company that will work in a long-term partnership with the Council to run the new recycling and landfill waste collection service for the next seven years, with an option to extend for a further seven. Veolia is the UK’s leading waste management company and is already responsible for the Borough’s street cleansing.
The new service will see food waste and a wide range of recyclable materials collected on a weekly basis. The following materials will be included in the weekly collection service:
- Newspapers
- Magazines
- Printer paper
- Plastic bottles
- Textiles and shoes
- Mixed glass
- Cans and tins
- Cardboard * NEW for 2008 *
- Liquid food and drink cartons * NEW for 2008 *
- Household batteries * NEW for 2008 *
- Telephone directories * NEW for 2008 *
- Food Waste (cooked and uncooked) * NEW for 2008 *
With so much being recycled and food waste still being collected on a weekly basis, the amount of landfill waste (rubbish that cannot currently be recycled) households throw away will be dramatically reduced and will therefore only need to be collected once a fortnight.
Why we had to act
Along with every local authority in the country, Kingston has been set a very challenging target by central Government of achieving a 65% reduction in the amount of biodegradable waste we send to landfill by 2020. Councils that exceed their ‘landfill allowances’ will be penalised with heavy fines of £150 per tonne - to get things into perspective, last year Kingston households sent 49,000 tonnes of waste to landfill.
On top of this, councils also have to pay a Landfill Tax, which at the moment is set at £32 per tonne, but by 2010 will have increased to £48 per tonne. If Kingston were to continue to send as much waste to landfill as it does today, it would cost the borough a staggering £9.9m in taxes and fines over the next eight years. This would have to be paid for through increases in council tax or reductions to other Council services. The easiest way to avoid these costs is to dramatically reduce the amount of waste we send to landfill – the new recycling and landfill waste collection service is designed to help and encourage residents to achieve this.
Lessons learnt from the Berrylands Trial
The new borough-wide service will be similar to the trial service that has been running amongst 2,500 households in Berrylands since March 2007. The trial has been a great success in terms of waste minimisation and increasing recycling rates:
- The amount of waste recycled using the green box in the Berrylands Trial area has more than doubled
- The amount of waste sent to landfill has almost halved
- 91% of residents in Berrylands now regularly use the recycling collection service, compared to 44% in the rest of the Borough**.
If the new borough-wide service comes anywhere near to replicating this success, Kingston would become one of the top performing areas for recycling in the country.
We have also learnt some valuable lessons from the Berrylands trial which have influenced the design of the new service:
- The green recycling box, kitchen caddy and food waste containers were popular amongst residents in the trial, who said they were about the right size and are durable enough for the job… So they will be used in the borough-wide scheme
- But some Berrylands Trial residents said that the wheelie bin used to store their landfill waste is too small… So, the size of the wheelie bin used borough-wide will be increased from 140 Litres to 180 Litres (a 180 Litre bin has the capacity of about two standard dustbins). Larger wheelie bins will also be available to households who – despite their best recycling efforts – are not able to fit all of their landfill waste into the 180 Litre-sized bin
- Residents in Berrylands were concerned that the black wheelie bins had a small microchip in the lid… The Council has listened to these concerns and the landfill waste wheelie bins being used for the new service will not contain a microchip.
Recycling in flats
The new and improved recycling service will not be limited to houses: flats are also set to benefit. A combination of mini recycling centres and a door-to-door collection service (based on the orange sack trial scheme) will be used.
We will work with resident associations and management companies on a block-by-block basis to implement a service that meets their needs. The roll-out of these services will start in Autumn 2008, and the plan is to have the majority of flats up and running within 12 months.
Communicating with residents
To support the roll-out of the new recycling and landfill waste collection service, a comprehensive communications campaign will run over the summer and Autumn months. This will include the delivery of an information pack to every house in the Borough, dedicated Contact Centre staff to answer residents’ queries and roadshows where residents can have their questions answered face-to-face.
These web pages will also be kept up to date as the new service takes shape.
Containers and the materials collected in them
The table below gives brief details about the size and types of containers that will beused in the new service.
| Container | Used to store... | Collected |
|---|---|---|
|
Green box (55L) |
Newspapers Magazines Printer paper Plastic bottles Textiles and shoes Mixed glass Cans Cardboard - New for 2008* Tetra Pak drink cartons - New for 2008* Aerosol cans - New for 2008* Telephone directories - New for 2008* Household batteries - New for 2008* |
Weekly |
|
Food waste container (25L) |
Food waste - New for 2008* |
Weekly |
|
Black wheelie bin (180L) |
Landfill waste |
Fortnightly |
Assisted Collections
An assisted collection service will be offered to disabled and/or older residents who have difficulty in presenting their containers for collection Residents who experience great difficulty in using the containers provided will be offered alternative options.
Further Information
If you have any questions about the new service, please call 020 8547 5560 or email environment@rbk.kingston.gov.uk.
Footnotes
* New materials will be included in the collection service subject to the Council being able to find a suitable recycling plant that will accept them.
** Monitored over a two-week period: 9-20 October 2006
New Garden Waste Collection Service
An improved garden waste recycling service will also be introduced in 2009, although exact details of this service are still to be finalised. The current garden waste service will continue until February 2009. You can find more information about the garden waste service by visiting the garden waste pages.
Current Recycling and Refuse collection service
Information on the current recycling and refuse services the council provides can be found on the pages below:
