Manchester City Council are cutting the collection of black bins to once every two weeks. The aim is to get more people recycling and cut down on what we put into landfill. The council say if everyone recycled they simply shouldn’t need a weekly black bin collection. But dustmen say uptake of recycling is patchy and a summer of rubbish strewn streets could await the city.
Re-cycling in Manchester is not a straight forward affair. The council provide four different bins for household waste. The black bins are for non-recyclable waste. The blue bins are for paper, cardboard and cartons. The brown bin is for glass, plastic and cans. The green bin is for garden and kitchen waste.
But it is what we do with our kitchen waste that is at the core of these new plans. Each year in the UK nearly ten million tonnes of food waste goes into landfill. By forcing people to put less food waste in their black bins, the council will save £12 million over the next three years through reducing the amount of rubbish they send to landfill. Last year each house in Manchester was given a ‘kitchen caddy’ and liners The idea is that householders put food waste in their kitchen caddy, not the bin. When full, it is emptied into the green wheely bin to be collected weekly by the council. The kitchen and garden waste is then taken to a processing plant and turned into fertiliser.
The council say that everyone now uses their kitchen waste bin and with no perishables in the black bins, they do not need collecting on a weekly basis. When the fortnightly black bin collections are introduced, only rubbish bags inside the bins will be taken; bags of rubbish on the pavement will be left behind. The hope is people will be forced to think about how they dispose of their waste.
I asked my local dustmen if they had noticed a difference and in black bin usage since the kitchen caddie scheme started. One dustmen, who wanted to remain anonymous said whilst some areas had been successful with recycling, other areas had not. He said
“They’ve got a mind set where they put whatever they want in the black bins”
and rather than change their habits he feels the new measures could see a rise in fly tipping.
Councillor Nigel Murphey is the Council’s executive member for Environment and Waste Services he points out that similar schemes have been a success as close to home as Stockport. He sees thinks the biggest obstacle the scheme needs to overcome is the fear people have of the unknown. He said
“The actual capacity of what we collect on a weekly basis is going to increase, if people put things in the right bins they’ve actually got more space to get rid of their rubbish”
The council say they will not be fining residents for using their bins incorrectly. The focus is upon education and residents will be receiving leaflets through their door in the next few weeks.
The heat of the summer months will definately bring the success or failure of the scheme into sharp relief. But like or loathe recycling with landfill sites fast running out and strict EU targets to cut the amount we put in the ground, we need to find an alternative way of dealing with our waste.
To hear more on the issue, click on the link below.
For more information on Recycling:
www.manchester.gov.uk/recycling
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