What role does recycling have to play?
The council has set a target to recycle 45 per cent of household waste by 2010. To help achieve this, the council has introduced a number of new kerbside collection services to make it more convenient for local residents to recycle.
In addition we intend to:
- Extend some or all of the kerbside recycling services currently available to every household where it is practical to do so. ‘Near entry’ recycling facilities will be made available to those residents who do not have access to wheeled bins due to the design or location of their properties.
- Maintain the many ‘bring’ sites, which are located throughout North Lincolnshire. We have not set targets for collecting material from these sites as the amount of material collected has been significantly reduced since the introduction of the kerbside recycling schemes. Nevertheless these sites play an important part in an integrated waste management solution. Those sites less well used may be relocated into new positions in order to improve their effectiveness.
- Improve the efficiency of our kerbside recycling schemes. Despite the high tonnages of material recovered through these schemes, surveys have shown that in some areas participation remains low. One mechanism we propose to use to help address this issue is the use of ‘doorsteppers’. These are recycling campaign officers who will provide one to one support for households experiencing difficulty in understanding or operating the schemes now in place.
- Continued promotion of home composting in partnership with the Waste Resource Action Programme (WRAP). Other practical waste reduction and avoidance strategies will also be promoted. This includes continuing to lobby central government and retailers on the unnecessary use of excessive packaging.
- Household Recycling Centres – The existing level of provision within North Lincolnshire is amongst the most generous in the UK. These sites also play a major role in the achievement of recycling targets. New recovery opportunities will be provided at each site such as those recently introduced for waste electric and electronic equipment (WEEE) and batteries. Measures will continue to be taken to restrict the use of these sites to local residents only.
- We will also continue to support seasonal initiatives such as Christmas tree recycling and other one-off schemes e.g. Yellow Woods challenge for telephone directories.
What impact does waste growth have?
The amount of waste produced by North Lincolnshire households has gone up by around two per cent each year over the past five years. If it continues to increase at this rate, the amount of waste requiring to be dealt with will rise from its current level of 100,000 tonnes per year to about 130,000 tonnes per year by 2020 – that’s a 30 per cent increase! Because of this the council is committed to reducing waste growth.
How much waste will be left over that we cannot recycle or compost?
Even if we achieve a 45 per cent recycling rate and a gradual reduction in waste growth, we will still be generating a significant amount of waste requiring treatment and disposal – this is known as residual waste. We estimate that we would need to divert an additional 17,000 tonnes of waste from landfill by 2013, and 30,000 tonnes of waste from landfill by 2020.