Once-a-month bin collections... binned
U-turn as council FINALLY listens to fed-up families
TRIALS of four-weekly bin collections have been dumped by a Scottish council after they failed to meet cost-cutting and recycling targets.
A reduction in conventional waste collections for landfill and an increase in recycling pick-ups were tested by Fife Council.
But after a year-long trial it was found the move failed to sufficiently increase recycling and did not meet cost-cutting targets, while proving ‘unpopular’ with residents.
Recycling rates only increased by 1.6 per cent, well short of the expected 6 per cent. It also emerged that householders were still prone to dumping recyclable rubbish in blue bins for landfill.
One trial, which saw landfill collected every three weeks, generated no savings, while four-weekly collections were deemed not to have saved enough money.
Residents will now get their food and garden waste collected every four weeks between December and February, when less garden waste is generated. Everything else reverts back to the original collection timetable.
Scottish Conservative environment spokesman Donald Cameron said it was ‘no surprise’ that the scheme had been scrapped.
He added: ‘It was unpopular and resulted in a dreadful level of service for council tax payers. It is important that local authorities constantly try to find ways of reducing waste and increasing recycling.
‘But stripping back bin collections to this unacceptable rate is clearly not the way to do it.’
Friends of the Earth Scotland Director Dr Richard Dixon said: ‘It is vitally important councils look at ways to increase recycling rates and ways to reduce the amount of rubbish going to landfill.
‘Fife Council will hopefully learn from this experience and keep investigating new ways to cut waste levels.’
EU targets demand at least half of all domestic waste be recycled by 2020, while the Scottish Government wants to reduce food waste by 33 per cent by 2025.
Councils claim fewer collections of landfill waste will help to meet these targets.
A spokesman for waste quango Zero Waste Scotland said: ‘Fife Council has one of the highest recycling rates in Scotland at nearly 55 per cent.
‘We applaud their continuing commitment to trying out new approaches which aim to increase recycling.’
A spokesman for Fife Council said: ‘The trials aimed to improve on Fife’s already good recycling rates and reduce the amount of waste sent to landfill.
‘At this time, the council has taken the decision not to proceed with a four-weekly collection of landfill bins.’