The Council has abandoned its proposal to empty green bins, and collect recycling, every 3 weeks.
The Councils waste collection service has been heavily criticised over the last few weeks with a lack of HGV drivers blamed for erratic, and sometimes non existent, collections.
The decision on less frequent collections comes in the wake of a survey of residents views and priorities.
The Council failed to ask residents whether they favoured the 3 weekly plan but the majority of respondents said that they were happy with the current arrangements.
Several said that they would prefer, instead of boxes, to have another wheeled bin in which to store glass, metals plastic. This hasn’t been taken up by the Council but they do say that recyclables (not paper) can now be mixed in the two baskets already provided for many residents.
The Councils Executive are now being asked to agree to proposals for the procurement of a new low emission fleet of recycling vehicles. They will also consider a proposal to start garden waste collections a month earlier. They currently start in April to the end of November, but under new proposals would start in March (beginning from March 2022).
The Executive will also consider “the cleaner and safer option of introducing of wheeled bins or other arrangements to around 6,200 properties (which currently use black bags for non –recyclable waste), predominantly in the Micklegate, Guildhall, Clifton, Holgate and Heworth wards. This will be taken to a future decision session of the Executive Member for Environment and Climate Change”.
“Changes planned include extending garden waste collections, so we can collect green bins earlier, introducing bags to bins to 6,200 properties, allowing residents to mix glass, cans and plastics in boxes to provide more flexibility, and introducing new and more efficient waste vehicles”.
Following Executive approval, residents will be able to recycle all materials together apart from paper and cardboard. Meaning, glass, cans and plastics can be placed in the same box (2 boxes per household). This is because the council had to adapt during the Covid pandemic and worked with its waste contractor at the facility to separate plastic, tins and glass. This emerged as a more efficient way of collecting recycling. It has not changed the way the materials collected are recycled and has been a useful pilot.
The Executive are being asked to consider that the consultation responses from residents across the city should inform the council’s response to the Government’s consultation. If approved, further options will be considered at a later decision session.
As the council’s 6-week consultation (30 March to 11 May) was coming to a close, the Government launched a national consultation on the ‘Consistency in Household and Business Recycling in England’, looking at wide ranging and ambitious changes to the future of recycling in the UK.
In addition to this, further details on the Environment Bill, which makes clear the Government’s intentions to potentially pay councils as part of mandatory weekly food collection, as well as introduce other significant changes to waste collection from 2024 to 2025, were released on 12 May.
Until the Environment Bill is passed and further details emerge from the national recycling consultation, there will remain a significant amount of uncertainty over what councils will need to do and by when.
A report will be taken to the Executive on 24 June at 5.30pm, the report can be read online ahead of the meeting, which will be livestreamed and can be watched online live, or afterwards.
