The South Glos Post

New recycling services are well underway in South Gloucestershire and many residents have been recycling their food waste and plastic bottles from the kerbside, says South Gloucestershire Council.

The additional services, which are being funded from within the council’s existing waste management budget, allow residents to recycle more, helping to divert more rubbish from landfill and saving money and energy whilst benefiting the environment.

Cllr Heather Goddard, executive member for communities, said: “Overall, the first week of the major new recycling services across the district has been a success. A good number of residents have started to use the food waste bins and put out either their plastic bottles or cardboard, depending on their schedule, which is incredibly pleasing and I would like to thank them for their support. We expect the volume of materials for recycling to increase in the coming weeks as residents get used to the new services.”

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Source: South Gloucestershire Council

With new recycling services launching across South Gloucestershire from next Monday (22nd November), new recruits have been trained and new vehicles have been delivered to help ensure the changes run as smoothly as possible for residents.

South Gloucestershire Council (SGC) and its recycling and resource management contractor, SITA UK, have recruited more than 30 new crew members and taken delivery of 14 new vehicles to deal with the additional recycling produced from collecting food waste and plastic bottles from the kerbside.

Cllr Heather Goddard, executive member for communities, said: “We have listened to our residents who told us weekly collection of food and kerbside collection of plastics was important to them and it is vitally important that we have the right people in place, using the right equipment to ensure this change in service runs as smoothly as possible.

“Although many of our residents are already keen recyclers, we want to encourage even more people by making recycling as easy as possible – and what is easier than collecting it from your doorstep?”

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A kerbside plastic bottle and food waste collection service is to be rolled out to every South Gloucestershire household in the biggest expansion of recycling services in 10 years.

South Gloucestershire Council’s (SGC’s) Conservative administration has unveiled an ‘in principle’ agreement with its waste contractor SITA to overhaul the 25 year contract that had been agreed in 2000 by the council’s then Liberal Democrat administration, which specifically left out kerbside plastic bottle and food waste collections.

Once the revised contract has been formally signed off, the proposed start date for the additional collection services would be winter 2010 and would lead to the council exceeding the 50 per cent recycling target set by its Conservative administration in the first full year of implementation.

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Source: Conservative Group on South Gloucestershire Council

Residents are being reminded that there will be changes to their refuse and recycling collections over the Christmas and New Year period.

As collection teams will not be working Christmas Day, Boxing Day or New Year’s Day, changes have been made to the collections schedule (full details here).

Normal collections will be resumed the week commencing Monday 18 January.

The changes apply to black bins, green bins and green recycling boxes and bags.

Please can residents put bins or recycling boxes outside by 7am on the day of collection. If a collection is missed on the due day, then residents should leave their bins out for collection on the following working day.

As part of the first black bin collection after Christmas, up to three extra bags of waste next to wheelie bins will be collected. This extra, one-off service is for black wheelie bins only, not for green bins.

The four SORT IT!* centres at Little Stoke, Mangotsfield, Thornbury and Yate will be closed on Friday 25 December, Saturday 26 December and Friday 1 January 2010.

The following information should also be noted:

• Bulky waste: collections will be suspended from Thursday 24 December 2009 until Monday 4 January 2010
• Christmas trees: these may be chopped up and put in green wheelie bins as long as the trunk or branches are no wider than four inches in diameter. Please can residents ensure that the bin lids are closed and that all decorations have been removed. If trees are too large they can be taken to nearest SORT IT!* centres
• Christmas cards: as many now have plastic or metal tinsel attached, they cannot be recycled as part of the kerbside collection service.
• Wrapping paper: this cannot be recycled as it is usually made from low quality paper unsuitable for recycling back into newsprint.

As in previous years the Woodland Trust is promoting a Christmas card recycling scheme – retailers WH Smith, Tesco, T.K. Maxx, Sainsbury’s and Marks and Spencer are taking part. Last year around 93 million Christmas cards were kept out of landfill through this scheme. Please check your nearest store to see if they are participating. Some charity shops may also recycle used cards.

SITA has been advising residents of changes to their collections by affixing tags to their bins. If any resident has not received their tag or if they require any further information about their rubbish and recycling services then they should ring1454 868000, email streetcare@southglos.gov.uk or visit www.southglos.gov.uk to request one.

Source: SouthGloucestershire Council