Airdrie & Coatbridge Advertiser
Quality and quantity of recycled items exceeds all hopes
Householders have been praised for the quantity and quality of recycled items collected since the bin collection cycle changes took effect.
The first three months of the new system produced 19,830 tons of recycled material – an extra 1164 tons or six per cent compared to the same quarter of 2016.
Its quality was “significantly above” what was expected, with between 90 and 95 per cent being in the top band-one category, compared to expectations of only 10 to 25 per cent.
Residents recycled 1598 more tons of food and garden waste than expected, and 55 tons more paper and card; but collections of glass, metal and plastic were down 1600 tons on what had been anticipated.
However, council officials noted in a report: “There have been a total of 21,878 new glass/metal/plastic bins issued since the start of the new service, so it is expected that this tonnage will increase.”
The new system’s introduction was beset with difficulties, including missed collections and pullouts, thousands of bins not being in place for the start of the scheme or being tagged for contamination, and new biodegradable food bags being unavailable.
Councillor Michael McPake, North Lanarkshire’s infrastructure convener, said: “Despite these problems, residents clearly want to recycle as much waste as possible and have responded positively by using the three recycling bins effectively.
“We have seen more recyclable materials collected and the quality of that material is high, which means less residual waste goes to landfill.
“If the level of collection continues, we could see an overall recycling rate of 47 per cent for 2017-18, compared to 41 per cent in the previous year – this would be a significant step towards achieving the Scottish Government target of 60 per cent by 2020.”
He added: “There were significant problems at the introduction of our new service, and we do appreciate the inconvenience this caused. Although most of these have now been resolved, we recognise there are still issues affecting certain areas and we are continuing to address these.
“I’d like to thank all residents for their patience during the introduction of the service and for their commitment to recycling which is delivering very encouraging results.”
Councillors at the infrastructure
committee were told that a total of 36,000 additional and replacement bins have been delivered to date, with the “larger than expected demand” coming from “residents who had previously opted out of recycling [realising] that they required all bins to ensure sufficient capacity” and from “properties that were not fully part of the previous recycling scheme and should have been identified as requiring additional bins”.
Around 40,000 bins were red-tagged for contamination in the first three weeks of the new service, and the report added: “Feedback received from residents suggested there had been an overly strict approach; further training and instruction has now been provided to ensure a more pragmatic approach is taken. However, from March contaminated bins will not be uplifted until the next cycle.”
Improvements to the pull-out service are being made, and a system has been established to transfer bin-related calls from the council’s contact centre direct to the waste team – after the new system saw the average number of calls per day prior to Christmas nearly double to 1400 from the previous 800.
Councillors were also told that there has been a “marked increase” in the use of recycling centres.