The council recently changed their some of their wheelie-bin collection days.
By re-organising their routes to eliminate overlaps (e.g. collecting from parts of the same area on different routes on different days), they no longer need one of their 8 dustcarts, and this frees up staff for the next stage of improvements — collecting more kerbside recycling.
Whether you use it or not, everyone has an open-top plastic box for recycling paper, card and cans. Now the idea is to add a caddy (with a lid!) for recycling food waste, plus a smaller caddy to collect the waste as you cook in your kitchen. Whenever the smaller caddy fills up, you empty it into the larger caddy outside.
The council will also provide two more open-top bins, one for plastics and cans, the other for mixed glass (you’ll no longer need to sort by colour).
National surveys suggest that over 1/3 of the average wheelie-bin-load is food waste, over 10% is plastics (bottles, cartons and other packaging), and another 5% is glass. In all, that’s about half the average load… if it was all recycled, the average wheelie bin would only need emptying half as often.
So the council proposes to empty the food waste caddy and other the other recycling bins each week, but only empty the wheelie bins every other week — always on the same day of the week.
If you follow the letters pages in the local press across other Surrey boroughs, this is the change that most exercises people’s imaginations. A more interesting issue is where to keep all these bins and caddies, especially if you live in a maisonette.
Read about the council’s proposals in detail, and give your views direct, here by Wednesday 13 January 2010.
Come along to the Sustainable Redhill meeting in January (19th) where we’ll be discussing the plans in detail, or add a comment here in the meantime to let us know what you think of the plans …
