We are disappointed that the 'Supporting Weekly
Collections' challenge fund announced by the Rt Hon Eric Pickles MP
fails to recognise or reward those councils, like North Somerset,
who have already made improvements to their waste and recycling
services.
The new services we introduced in 2010 deliver value for money,
environmental benefits, high levels of resident satisfaction and
give priority to a weekly collection of what Mr Pickles calls
"smelly" food waste, but still his scheme fails to make funding
available to North Somerset.
Under the criteria announced by Mr Pickles, North Somerset
Council is not eligible for funding under the scheme, unless it
returns to a weekly collection of residual waste.
We believe that this would be a backwards step and the
reinstatement of weekly refuse collections would be neither cost
effective nor achieve any environmental benefits. On the contrary,
we believe it would cost more, would reduce recycling rates and
would increase the amount of waste sent to landfill. The rules for
the scheme also allow councils who have yet to introduce a weekly
food-waste collection to apply for funding to help them introduce
such a scheme. Forward thinking North Somerset Council did this
nearly two years ago, but gets no reward from Mr Pickles.
In the summer of 2010, in response to the views of residents,
escalating costs and environmental concerns, we revolutionised the
service from an expensive refuse collection service to a
cost-effective, sustainable, recycling service. The existence of a
weekly recycling and food waste service means that a weekly
collection of residual waste is simply not needed.
The amount of kerbside residual waste put out by householders
has reduced from around 700 kg per household in 2009/10 to less
than 470 kg per household in 2011/12. In fact, since 2005, the
amount of residual waste put out by householders has reduced by
more than half. Research shows very high levels of
satisfaction with the new services.
In the two years since we began the roll out of the new
services, we have achieved the following:-
- A 58% increase in the amount of waste recycled or
composted (from 38,000 tonnes to 60,000 tonnes)
- A recycling rate that has increased from 37% to 58% - one
of the best in the country
- A 21,000 tonne per annum reduction in residual household
waste
- A £2m reduction in landfill / disposal costs, expected to
rise to £10m over the course of the seven-year contract
- Very high levels of resident satisfaction with the new
collection services - % of respondents satisfied as follows
(compared with a national average overall satisfaction rate of 78%)
:
o Residual waste service – 92%
o Recycling service – 94%
o Food waste service – 91%
o Garden waste service – 95%
