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by Lib Dem team on 4 December, 2010
In the past, Stockport has collected all the household refuse people want to throw out. The problem with that approach has been people who could recycle but choose not to – the rest of us pay more tax to fund them (because it’s far more expensive to throw rubbish into landfill than to recycle).
The new system aims to encourage those people to recycle more – for most households, Stockport will collect one black wheelie bin full of rubbish once a fortnight. It’s working. After the first month of the system, recycling was up a massive 45% with refuse down 42%, so people clearly are recycling lots of things they didn’t do before and that’s saving taxpayers hundreds of thousands of pounds as well as being good for the environment.
The problem, of course, is that not everyone produces the same amount of rubbish. My family of four never manage to fill our black bin, but others do – just because they have different shopping habits or whatever it might be.
Stockport Council will therefore give a second black bin to those who need it. You can apply by emailing streetscene@stockport.gov.uk.
But the Council doesn’t want to give out black bins to everyone, whether they really need them or not. That defeats the whole purpose of getting residents to recycle more and puts us back to paying more for those who don’t recycle.
So there is a short process to go through for the Council to check that you genuinely need a second black bin, rather than just not wanting to recycle properly.
See also my tips on how I get more into my own black bin.
5 Comments
If the council are saving money does by the increased recycling does this mean we will get a reduction in our council tax?
Hi Lorraine,
Council tax won’t increase next year, which you can see as the second real-terms decrease in a row if you’re feeling generous.
We’re having to reduce council spending by around £20 million next year, so saving money on bin collections means we can still spend that money on something else, like repairing potholes.
Waste disposal has improved significantly over the past few years but more needs to be done. Waste producers need to be made more aware of where it all ends up. The black bins should be permanently and clearly labelled landfill, the green bins compost, the blue bins paper and the brown bins recycling. Referring to the bins by their colour is convenient but it does not reinforce their purpose; which is to benefit us all.
Iain, it would help if the black bins were collected! We now have 4 weeks worth of rubbish at the front of the house. We have only once had the bin collected on the correct day and yet we have the waggons going past our house hundreds of times per week. There is no common sense in the new system!
Maybe the refuse was down 42% the first month because it was not collected, our last refuse collection was on the 17th Nov, our next due on the 15th Dec, although the recycled refuse was collected as normal, anyone else in the same situation?I wonder want the percentages are for this next month?