Re-introducing weekly collections here would Borough Councillor Matthew Lay writes in the Herald I often leave it late to pen my article for the Herald and this month was no different. Sat at home thinking about what to write, waiting for inspiration, I had the TV on. All of sudden I noticed that the Minister for Local Government, Eric Pickles, was talking about giving cash to local authorities to re-introduce weekly refuse collections. Cash which the same man had taken away from Councils last April. I think if I remember correctly he said that it was the “desire for every Englishman to put the remnants of their chicken tikka-masala in their bin without having to wait a fortnight for it to be collected”. This got me thinking about the subject at hand. When Hinckley and Bosworth went from weekly collections to one every two weeks, it was at the time, a controversial decision and not one I supported. The big driver for the change was the need to balance the costs between refuse collection and recycling and to limit the amount of domestic waste that was collected and going into landfill. On the back of this change the Council started to expand the kerbside collection to include a range of recyclable produce. This in turn led to the alternate week system whereby one week the
Council collects refuse and the next it collects recyclables and garden waste which is composted. Over the years since the move from weekly collections, which was around 2004, the Council have actually done remarkably well in providing a range of services while keeping expenditure to a minimum. Presently the Council is recycling over 50% of the domestic waste it collects and it does with one of the lowest costs per household in the UK (this despite it being a rural area which increases cost). To be honest, no political party can really claim credit for all this (although they will of course). The building blocks for this performance can be traced back to the LibDem/Labour administration of 1999-2003 who started to introduce the concept of kerbside recycling collections and moved to bring the refuse contracts back in house. It was carried on through the Conservative administration during 2003-2007 who introduced the move to fortnightly refuse collections and wheelie bins. This move was strongly opposed by the Lib-Dems at the time, who promised to re-introduce a weekly collection if they got back into power. They did get back and what did they do when they won in 2007, they carried on with the same policies as had gone before, and further expanded the collection of
recyclables as financial incentives became greater to do so (landfill tax and the value of recycled material like glass and metals which is so much higher today than 10 years ago). Now we have a situation in which further improvements are set to be delivered and these include the provision of a third wheelie bin for all recyclable produce except for green waste. This third bin has been available for a fee to householders, but from next April I am told it will be provided free to all households who want one. This bin would remove the need for the yellow and blue bags and the blue box, as the bin has a box that hangs inside. In effect the Council now collects almost all waste that can be recycled except for food waste which would require further investment but is being looked at. This development alone could take the Council to a recycling rate of over 60%. At present there is little disagreement amongst councillors on the Borough as to how the service is operated (although this will probably change following the Pickles announcement). The surveys the Council carries out all show that the public rates the refuse and recycling service very highly and thinks it does a good job (although mistakes happen). This high level of satisfaction is actually
interesting because it has been remarkably consistent throughout the 16 years I have been on the Council. When I look back we have come a long way. In 1995 the year I was first elected the Council ran a weekly back door collection of waste. We did not provide bins and people used there own or just used black bags etc. The only recycling the Council operated were the few glass bins that could be found dotted around (and still can) and the total waste recycled was negligible in volume terms. People back than used to love the system because the Council would collect whatever was put out and it was straight forward, no thought to separating waste into different containers, just get rid. I wonder though, was it really that great? In fact it cost us more per household to deliver that service in today’s prices and it just allowed people to produce as much waste as they chose without any thought to the consequences or to take some responsibility for their own actions. This can be seen in the amount of waste that no longer goes into landfill. The move from weekly to fortnightly collections was at the beginning unpopular but it changed things because it made us all change our habits and to be honest for the good of us all.
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It’s hard enough to remember my opinions, without also remembering my reasons for them.