Borders homes to get 80,000 wheelie bins in £18.6m plan

Published on Saturday 17 April 2004 01:00

MORE than 80,000 wheelie bins are to be issued free of charge to Borders households as part of a multi-million pound initiative to revolutionise refuse collection across the region.

Every Borders household will get a new bin. Most urban properties will receive two: one for domestic waste and the other for garden waste, while 16,000 rural homes will receive composters for their biodegradable rubbish.

It will cost the public purse almost 15 million to implement and run the so-called Borders Waste Strategy over the next six years so that the region can meet European targets on recycling.

All of that money will come from the Scottish Executive, which has given conditional approval for a business case put forward by Scottish Borders Council. That has produced an "in principle" award of 2.4 million a year until 2010.

In addition, the Executive is expected to come up with an estimated 3.6 million for the infrastructure that will be needed for the new collection system.

This will include the development of waste-transfer stations in Hawick, Galashiels, Duns and Peebles. The council will buy a fleet of eight "split body" refuse lorries to make extra kerbside collections, and because the delivery time for these is 26 weeks it will be November before the new system can be begin.

There have been repeated warnings from officials that the Borders is running short of refuse disposal sites, and with more than 80 per cent of the area’s municipal waste currently being transported by road to landfill sites there is an urgent need for alternative methods of dealing with rubbish generated by the region’s 106,000 residents. More than 40,000 tonnes of household waste and 19,000 tonnes of commercial waste are collected in the Borders each year. The cost of disposal works out at more than 40 per household.

John Cook, the council’s head of amenity services, said: "Like every other local authority, our aim is to be recycling 25 per cent of the collection by 2006. Our current figure is 9.7 per cent, which is above the Scottish average, so we have some way to go to meet the target."

He said implementing the strategy involved a huge amount of organisation, and the change would be backed by an education and awareness programme to persuade the maximum number of households to participate in the new arrangements, which will be voluntary at this stage.

All 50,000 Borders households will get a 180-litre wheelie bin for general use. Every home will also receive plastic bags, collected separately on a weekly basis, for paper and cardboard, plastic, cans and textiles.

"Before submitting our business case to the executive we commissioned a random survey of 1,000 Borders households with questions linked to the proposed waste strategy," Mr Cook said. "Of those interviewed, 87 per cent indicated they would be prepared to participate in the new arrangements."

He said he was encouraged that 60 per cent of the participants were already involved in some kind of recycling scheme.

The need for separate collections of the various types of refuse will mean three weekly collections in towns during the summer and two in winter. Country areas will continue to receive a once-a-week service from the environmental standards department.

"Although the new system will be introduced wherever possible, there will be exceptions for disabled people or in cases where properties may not be suitable for the proposed collection methods," Mr Cook said.