Sefton Council bin collection shake-up means no more recycling 'tubs' for households

The recycling tub used for glass will abolished as Sefton Council brings recycling duties "in-house"

Sefton households will see a shake-up in their recycling – including the loss of their recycling tub – as the Council take control of waste collections.

The new system would see residents using only the current 240-litre brown wheelie bin for all their “dry recycling”, instead of separating glass and tins into a separate tub container and putting card and paper into the brown bin.

It is the ‘preferred’ of three options being put before councillors to decide.

The new collection method is called “co-mingled”, a similar service to the one adopted by Liverpool City Council.

A report which will be debated at Sefton Council’s Cabinet meeting today (Tuesday) states through introducing a co-mingled collection there will be a “significant reduction in the tonnage disposed of via the grey residual bin” and a “significant increase in the volume of materials disposed of via the brown bin”.

This saves Sefton Council £76 on every tonne of rubbish that is sent to the “Material Recovery Facility” - or recycling facility - over being processed at a landfill site.

Sefton Council highlighted the disposal cost of using the Material Recovery Facilities at Gillmoss is £37 per tonne, while disposal at a landfill is £113 per tonne, so there is a “distinct cost benefit” for the council to divert rubbish from the landfill to the MRF.

The report says: “Residents (will) benefit from only having to use one container for all dry recyclable materials.

“As a consequence, the amount of dry recycled material in the brown bin will increase as it becomes easier to use a single brown bin for all dry recycling, rather than having to sort it between a number of different receptacles and containers.”

The current five-year waste collection contract with Palm Recycling UK Ltd ends in July 2016, but council officers at Sefton are now urging councillors to back their calls for all waste and recycling services to be provided in-house.

The new set-up would mean there would still be a green wheelie bin collection every three weeks, a recycling brown wheelie bin collection every two weeks, and a standard “black bin” one for residents in terraced homes which are not provided with wheelie bins.

Food waste would be collected separately but would change to fortnightly frequency, with compostable liners provided for residents to use.

The changes however would cost the council an extra £1million over the next two years, because of the drop in the recycling commodities market in recent years and because of the extra resources needed.

The second alternative option being proposed by Sefton Council officers are to re-tender the current contract, which they estimate would cost an additional £1million over the next two years without seeing any increase in recycling rates.

The third would see food waste and paper collected in a standalone operation, whilst operating a recycling collection service, a residual waste collection service, and a green ‘garden waste’ collection service.

Story and Photo source: Southport Visiter - By FRANCESCA FITZSIMMONS