Have a Merry ‘green’ Christmas say Council

City of York Council’s Recycling Team is helping residents to have a ‘green’ Christmas this year by providing festive dos and don’ts to make it even easier to recycle and re-use Christmas waste.

Greetings cards, wrapping paper and crackers are just some of the items that can be recycled through the council’s household waste and recycling collections.

Councillor Andrew Waller, executive member for environment, said: “Christmas is a time of great joy and celebration for most people, but it’s also a time when we create lots of extra waste.

“Just giving a bit of ‘One Planet’ thought to how we can recycle, re-use and compost Christmas waste can make a huge difference to the amount we throw away.

“Re-using items such as wrapping paper and gift bags can also be a great way to help keep costs down next Christmas.”

Festive ‘dos’ to recycle include:

  • Greetings cards
  • Wrapping paper (non foil)
  • Cardboard
  • Crackers (remove all the embellishments, such as bows, first)
  • Bottles
  • Tins

Real Christmas trees and wreaths (with tinsel and decorations removed) can be recycled at Hazel Court or Towthorpe Waste Household Recycling Centres. Lots of food waste can be composted and re-used in the garden. Visit www.getcomposting.com for more information.

Festive don’ts to recycle:

  • Heavily glittered items
  • Tinsel
  • Foil wrapping paper
  • Plastic Christmas trees and wreaths

For some tasty recipes on using up festive leftovers and hints on how to reduce food waste visit www.lovefoodhatewaste.com

Residents can check their recycling collection days using:

the  calendar which the council distributed to households across the city in October and November

online at www.york.gov.uk/refuselookup

get free alerts to smartphones or tablets by downloading the OnePlanetYork app from itunes or google playstore.

The city’s household waste centres are open every day except Christmas Day, Boxing Day and New Year’s day (with Towthorpe also closed on Wednesdays).  To check what can go in your recycling boxes, visit www.york.gov.uk/waste

For more information on festive waste and recycling visit www.york.gov.uk/festivereycling

Extra waste collections over the Christmas period

All households will get extra household waste collections (grey bins/black sacks) during weeks commencing 18 December 2017 and 2 January 2018… Put your waste out by 7.00am for collection! click  CHECK YOUR COLLECTION DAY/DATES: WWW.YORK.GOV.UK/REFUSELOOKUP

Acomb Green Lane trader falls foul of waste laws – fined £670

Waste carriers in York are being urged to ensure they are properly licenced to collect, carry and dispose of waste, following a prosecution today (7 November) of illegal activity.

David Grierson, aged 67 of Green Lane, York, pleaded guilty to two charges of unlicenced handling of commercial waste. York Magistrates Court gave him a 24-month conditional discharge and ordered him to pay £650.32 prosecution costs and a £20 court surcharge.

Mr Grierson who runs Green Lane Carpets, Acomb was found carrying waste from his business when he was stopped on 10 March as part of a joint operation with North Yorkshire Police and Her Majesty’s Revenues and Customs.

This routine enforcement action involved stopping and searching business vehicles to determine whether they were complying with the legal requirements relating to waste carrying and waste transfer.

Mr Grierson failed to produce a copy of authority to transport controlled waste and failed to produce waste information. He was served with two notices requesting to produce the correct licence and documents, failed to do so and was served with a fixed penalty notice that he failed to acknowledge or pay.

Lower Tier waste licences are free and are required by traders carrying their own waste. Traders carrying other peoples waste require Upper Tier licences which cost £250.

(more…)

Residents invited to talk rubbish as York council reviews recycling sites

City of York Council wants to know more about how residents use recycling banks across the city, and how they want to use them in the future.

The council is reviewing around 50 sites which contain banks for recycling between one and 12 different materials.  These are mainly situated in car parks, streets and other public areas of the city.

Residents are asked to fill in a short online survey to influence the review, which will look at the number of the sites, where they are located, the range of materials which can be recycled, and their general appearance.

Residents have until Wednesday 9 August to fill in the survey, which they can access from consultation page of council’s website https://www.york.gov.uk/consultations

Councillor Andrew Waller, executive member for the environment, said:

Recycling bins in Acomb car park

“We want to improve our recycling rates further in York, and want to modernise the ‘bring banks’ network as it is looking tired in places, and some gaps have appeared in parts of the city where landowners have asked for them to be removed.

“We are receiving requests all the time for new materials such as cartons to be included and so want to respond to support residents.

We are encouraging residents to engage with the council to fill in the survey so that we can provide the right recycling banks in the right places.”

In 2016/17, the recycling sites collected an estimated 800 tonnes of materials, and cost the council around £75,000.

The city’s two Household Waste Recycling Centres are not part of this review.

Chance to bid for a share of £30,000 to help reduce waste in York

slothCommunity 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.

Council supports students to recycle up to £102k-worth of donations for charity

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.recycling-community-9155

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…)

Labour planning new household waste site charges

Reliable sources in West Offices have confirmed that Labour intend to impose new charges – for non recyclable rubbish -taken to sites like Hazel Court.

Bed dumped in field off Askham Lane

Bed dumped in field off Askham Lane

At the moment residents can take items to the “tip” free of charge.

The proposed charge – unlikely to be admitted by Labour until the Westfield by election is out of the way – follow on from the closure of the Beckfield Lane household waste recycling site and an 13% increase in the cost of having up to 10 bulky items removed by the Council.

Bulky waste removal now costs £36.75p

Second green waste bins are now charged for and Labour are understood to be on the on the brink of introducing charges for emptying all green bins

The consequences of these misguided polices are clear to see with fly tipping an increasing problem across the City (see photo)