City has one of worst recycling rates
BIRMINGHAM has one poorest recycling rates country.
The latest damning set of official government statistics covering 2016/17 showed the city recycled, reused or composted less than a quarter of household waste (24.4 per cent).
The figures covered the period before this year’s bin strike during which separate recycling collections were stopped for weeks on end. It means the figures will eventually be even worse when they are collated since bottles, plastic and paper were mixed in with general waste sent for incineration or landfill.
With Birmingham already ninth from the bottom of a list of more than 320 councils, it seems likely the situation will get worse before it can improve in the 2018/19 figures.
The city used to recycle almost 30 per cent of waste but that has dropped since the scrapping of free garden waste collections in 2014.
But city council bosses now say they have a plan to turn the service around through its new waste strategy, which is currently being developed. of in the the
The 20-year plan sets an ambitious target of 70 per cent of household waste recycled by 2040 and will be launched in 2019, when the council finishes paying the 25-year bill on the Tyseley Incinerator, saving about £10 million a year.
Council bins boss Lisa Trickett previously said that they will look at local projects, rather than city-wide ones because some neighbourhoods are more ready to extend the range of recycling than others.
Meanwhile, the council will also focus on reducing waste, such as cutting packaging or encouraging households not to throw out so much food.
As part of the bin strike settlement, there will be a new cohort of waste reduction officers visiting homes and streets to encour- age people to cut they put in the bin.
The Government Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs is now considering imposing a more consistent set of recycling schemes on councils as ministers are frustrated at the wide variation between authorities. the amount