A further 20,000 properties in Liverpool are to see changes in the way their bins are collected.
The second phase of the managed weekly collection service starts on 22 September. Purple bins with household waste will be collected one week with blue bins for recycled material and green bins for garden waste collected the following week.
This follows the successful introduction of managed weekly collections in October last year to 112,000 properties. The properties in the new phase are those, throughout the city, in which there are issues about access and storage of bins and it needed to be ensured that operational issues involved in their collection have been resolved.
“We have increased our recycling rate so far by about 5% to 31% following the introduction of managed weekly collections” said Councillor Steve Munby, cabinet member for neighbourhoods and waste services, “and as more properties are moving towards the new system of collection we would expect that to increase.
“Our objective is eventually to have a recycling rate of 55% – it’s a very ambitious target but we should be aiming high. There are very good environmental reasons why we should be recycling much more than we have in the past.
“But also it costs us £32m a year in collecting ,recycling and disposing waste in the city at a time when we are facing £156m in cuts and if we can reduce that figure it means we are better able to protect services.
“Increasing our recycling means that we are not burying waste in the ground and having to pay as much landfill tax. Having a managed weekly collection, which brings us into line with the majority of councils throughout the country, has already been shown to improve our recycling rate, although there is still too much being put in purple bins which should be recycled. A lot of information is available about what should go in each bin if people are not sure.
“The first phase was introduced largely successfully thanks to the cooperation of residents and there is no reason why the new phase should not be as equally successful.
“It makes a lot of sense to carry out major changes such as this in stages so that any problems which arise can be dealt with in bite-sized chunks.”
Changes to the service do not apply to those houses which use plastic sacks for waste collection.
