The bottle and paper recycling banks at Acomb (Morrisons) car park are currently full (1100 hrs Monday 9th Jan).
There is space in the can banks
……and now for the rubbish clear up
All properties in York will get either a grey bin or recycling collection this week.
When you have a recycling collection, the Council will accept extra festive recycling including greeting cards, paper, wrapping paper (non foil), cardboard, plastic bottles, tins and glass. All you need to do is place them in separate untied clear bags or open boxes with your recycling, or simply take them to a recycling site.
Real Christmas trees and wreaths can also be taken to our recycling sites at Hazel Court HWRC or Towthorpe HWRC.
You can check when your refuse will be collected by clicking here
Changes planned to recycling collection days in York
The York Council says that from 1st April there will major changes to recycling collection arrangements in the City.
New refuse collections vehicles have been ordered by the York Council
In approximately half of the City, recycling collections will take place on a different day to Green/Grey bin emptying.
At the moment the Council Is not saying which homes will be affected but a decision on the proposal is set to be taken on 9th January
Clearly some households will be inconvenienced by a change of this sort – particularly if they are expected to put rubbish out before 7:00am on two occasions in a week.
To help improve efficiency the Council is investing in new recycling trucks (left).
Recently the Council has been criticised for “co-mingling” recyclables in one vehicle compartment incurring additional costs when it is sorted later. “Spy” photos of the practice, circulated on social media, were initially repudiated by officials but it now turns out that the practice was costing taxpayers over £60 a load (equivalent to around £40,000 a year)
There are several good points in the proposals.
- Enhanced recycling collections will be extended to rural areas like Kexby.
- During the first 3 months of the new arrangements, a back up vehicle will respond to any teething problems.
- Residents who need new recycling boxes or nets will be able to collect them free of charge.
The new arrangements are expected to reduce Council expenditure by over £360,000 a year. There are likely to be some job loses among the refuse collection workforce.
The Council says that it plans to rearrange Grey/Green bin collection arrangements in 2018
NB. Responding to a Councillors survey undertaken in the Westfield ward last summer, 52% rated the refuse collection service as “Good”, 39% said it was satisfactory and only 9% described it as “Poor”.
Equivalent figures for recycling were “Good” – 43%, Satisfactory – 48% and 9% – “Poor”.
These were the two most highly rated public services in the City according to residents.
Chance to bid for a share of £30,000 to help reduce waste in York
Community groups across York are being given the chance to bid for a share of £30,000 to support community projects that could help reduce waste.
The kinds of projects the fund will support includes:
- Reducing waste from households e.g. reduce household waste going into the grey bin / helping to increase the amount of waste recycled
- Promoting waste prevention e.g. encouraging reuse, repair and recycling of items / reducing food waste (in line with the Love Food Hate Waste campaign)
- Reducing carbon emissions e.g. finding alternative options for composting garden waste for households with no collection / using lower carbon travel alternatives
Registered charities, not-for-profit organisations (including social enterprises), community or voluntary groups, schools, colleges or universities, residents associations and Parish Councils can all apply for funding. Projects can also include a partnership with a private sector organisation.
Cllr Andrew Waller, Executive Member for the Environment, said: “This fund is a great opportunity to help communities and groups reduce waste and encourage re-use. By providing the funding to enable them to get their campaigns off the ground, this will really help us to create a more sustainable and resilient One Planet York, and make York the “Greenest City in the North”. We encourage as many groups as possible to apply for this funding before 20 January.”
Groups can apply for any amount of funding between £1 and £5,000 but if there are a large number of good applications then awards may be reduced proportionately.
The closing date for applications is 5pm Friday 20 January 2017.
To request an application form please email ycc@york.gov.uk with the subject ‘York Community Recycling Fund’.
To find out more information visit: www.york.gov.uk/recyclingfund, which includes examples of the types of schemes the council will fund, how to apply, the timescales for applying and further supporting information.
Recycling promoted by City of York Council, university students and The British Heart Foundation (BHF) could have raised up to £102,312 for the charity last academic year.
With council and university officers promoting recycling to students and by BHF providing recycling banks, 7,380 bags were donated between October 2015 to September 2016 to go towards funding the fight against heart disease
For the fourth year running, BHF shops have teamed up with University of York, York St John’s University and City of York Council to encourage students to have an end of year clear out and responsibly dispose of unwanted items by recycling them or by donating them to the charity.
The council donation drop-off points and BHF bins located in areas near where students live were well-used. The clothes, shoes, books, DVDs, bags and small electricals no longer needed are now being sold in BHF shops to help fund BHF research.
(more…)
Reuse and salvage – Questions about York approach
One of the most short sighted decisions of the York Council’s Labour administration between 2011 – 2015 was their decision to scrap plans for a “reuse and salvage” centre.
The facility could have been located at Harewood Whin and – as well as replacing the Beckfield Lane recycling facility which was closed in 2012 – would have provided 21st century salvage facilities for surplus items in the City.
Electrical equipment skip at Hazel Court.
More important, it would have introduced a more professional approach to the re-use of unwanted, but still serviceable, items.
That need is currently partly met by the internet based Freecycle and similar groups but large numbers of usable objects still find themselves in the land-fill stream.
Today, visitors to the Hazel Court amenity site witnesses a good example of the issue. One resident arrived with a set of perfectly serviceable wooden dining chairs. They would have found their way into the timber recycling skip had not another visitor offered them a new home. But that was down to luck not planning.
Recycling is more costly, and energy intensive, than simply reusing items…..even if some need repair or a coat of paint.
The Council still persists in asking residents to drop electrical goods into a steel container from a height of 3 metres jeopardising any opportunity to reuse the computers, printers, phones and other potentially valuable items which fill the skip each day.
The Council must take an independent look at the range of re-use services that are available in the city.
They then need to expand them and make sure that the options available are communicated regularly, and effectively, to local residents.
60% of York residents say road maintenance is “poor”
With the York Council’s ruling Executive due to discuss it’s first quarter performance later today, a new survey has revealed that many residents are unhappy with public service standards in the City.
West York survey results July/Aug 2016
Road repairs (60% rated “poor”) and footpath repairs (57%) top the list of woes, but there is also criticism of litter bin provision and car parking arrangements in some sub-urban estates.
Best rated service was recycling (92% rated good or satisfactory), with refuse collection also rated positively (89%).
The Council’s investment in new street lighting seems to be impressing people with 87% now rating it as good or satisfactory.
However there is little evidence that the Council’s proclaimed priority – investing in street level service quality – is having a positive effect.
Dissatisfaction with roads and footpaths is at an all time high.
Councillors today will be given a different set of figures to consider. Their “key performance indicators” are not included on the Executive agenda but can be accessed via the”open data” web site.
This is in itself a step forward from previous years when data was often hidden from residents.
Transport KPIs August 2016 click to access
However a closer look at the stats reveals that, not only are most quarter one figures unavailable, but also many of the out-turn figures for 2015/16 haven’t been updated.
No improvement targets are identified.
Quite what “performance” – other than a bland anecdotal commentary – Councillors will therefore be considering later today is a mystery.
The York Council must now put more emphasis on customer satisfaction. Publishing the results of quarterly residents “talkabout” panel views would be a start.
The key message though, as the Council begins to construct its budget priorities for next year, is that residents want to see more invested in repairing our roads and footpaths.
Good turn out for first free compost day
fill up your own containers with free compost
A good response yesterday to the first free compost giveaway at Harewood Whin.
The next giveaway takes place on Sunday 5th June
Harewood Whin – Waste activities set to continue to 2030
Entrance to Harewood Whin
Yorwaste the operators of the Harewood Whin waste site are seeking planning permission to extend some of their activities until 2030.
Two applications will be considered at a meeting taking place on 12th May.
The first application seeks agreement to the expansion and continued use of a section of the site for composting. The proposal envisages the continuing use of the existing concrete composting pad, together with an associated extension of some 6,910 sq metres in area, up until December 2030.
The pad is used to store and turn compostable materials in linear masses or windrows for periods of 6 to 12 weeks at a time to make compost. The size of the pad allows for the processing of a maximum of 70,000 tonnes of material which would meet current expectations of demand over the application period.
The second application is for the construction of a waste transfer station. The facility will be used for the bulking up and transference of materials to be used in the proposed Allerton Park Waste Incinerator.
The applicant has agreed as part of the development proposal to contribute towards the provision of a cycle track along the Wetherby Road frontage and to unilaterally revoke an extant planning permission for a biomass plant on the site.
Both applications are recommended for approval
Acomb car park recycling area blighted by flytipping
Although not as bad as on some occasions in the past, black sacks and other items have been fly tipped on the Acomb car park.
These have been reported to the Council using the fixmystreet website.(in the continuing absence of the much promised, but never delivered, new Council reporting app).
More fly tipping
Fly tipping in Acomb car park
Full clothes bank
Full clothes bank
Green waste collection restarting on 4th April
