Hazel Mollison: Green light for bin collections to go

Published on Monday 2 March 2009 08:58

IT is an idea which has prompted rumblings of discontent in homes across Britain. The idea of losing the weekly bin collection in favour of a fortnightly service – or even a monthly one in parts of Fife – is galling to many, particularly when it is one of the few services they receive directly from the council.

But the argument is beginning to stack up for local authorities who are facing the prospect of fines for missing recycling targets.

And there lies the rub. It is not saving the planet which is at the forefront of council officials' minds when they consider the issue, no matter how passionately they might, or might not, feel about the cause. It is, of course, money.

The five Lothian and Borders councils are facing EU fines of up to 18 million a year from 2013 if they don't significantly increase recycling levels.

That is no small amount of money, particularly at a time when local authority budgets are getting tighter.

So, all across the UK, councils are having to look at more imaginative ways to cut the levels of rubbish sent to landfill.

Cutting the number of bin collections while increasing recycling pick-ups is proving a popular option. Residents of Midlothian and West Lothian are among those to have already seen their rubbish collections cut to once a fortnight, with recycling picked up on alternate weeks.

They both say this has been a great success, despite initial complaints, and that fears of bulging bins and hygiene problems proved to be unfounded.

West Lothian Council's environment leader, Councillor Robert De Bold, says it has been instrumental in a push which has seen recycling rates across the district rise eightfold in eight years.

"There was a degree of public opposition, as with any significant change, but it is now broadly accepted," he says.

"In 2001, when it was introduced, our recycling rate was only four per cent. Now it is 34.2 per cent. I think it's important to change people's perceptions as well. I'd like to see people calling it a 'landfill bin', rather than a 'rubbish bin'."

Monthly collections though, as are being planned for a pilot study in Fife, would be a step too far, he adds.

There is far less enthusiasm for the idea in the Capital, even from the city's Greens – at least for the moment. Where the idea is resisted, the sticking point tends to be councillors, who have to weigh up the popularity of such a move with the public. Many balk at the proposal.

Edinburgh's environment leader, Councillor Robert Aldridge, believes the "carrot is more effective than the stick" when it comes to increasing recycling.

"We're not considering fortnightly collections at the moment," he says. "The evidence is that if you offer good recycling opportunities, people will use them.

"We've had a lot of really good responses from extending the garden waste collection all year round. One of the things we're looking at now is how to deal with food waste."

The Capital, of course, has its unique challenges when it comes to providing recycling services, especially in the sensitive World Heritage Site and the large number of tenements.

Although Edinburgh's recycling rates lag behind those of the other Lothian councils, they stand comparison with other urban authorities.

Around 125,000 city households – out of a total of 220,000 – do have rubbish and recycling picked up from their doorstep. Anything that leads to those households recycling more would have a significant impact on the city's recycling rates.

Something certainly needs to be done to avoid the city being hit with EU fines.

The Capital, like most other areas, has seen a remarkable turnaround in it's performance in recent years. The amount of household waste being recycled has tripled in the last six years.

But the council still faces an uphill struggle to meet the national target of 40 per cent by the end of next year. The rate was 31 per cent last year.

Green city councillor Alison Johnstone says there is much that can be done before cuts in rubbish collection need to be considered. "If we've got to increase recycling by 25 per cent , we're going to have to get our act together. There are several thousand households that do not have access to facilities. People have shown they want to recycle, but one of the most frequent complaints I get is that communal recycling bins are overflowing. The council should simply increase the frequency of collections.

"At the moment it would be unfair to reduce waste collections, as we don't have adequate kerbside recycling."

There may be optimism that next year's 40 per cent target can be reached without cutting bin collections. It appears households which find their bins bulging at the end of each week can breathe a sigh of relief – at least for just now.

But, with more stringent targets on the horizon, including a Scottish Government "aspiration" to see 70 per cent of municipal waste recycled by 2025, it can only be a matter of time before they come on to Edinburgh's agenda.