A drive to cut the amount of recyclable waste sent to landfill in Liverpool is getting underway on Monday 6 March.
The city council is beginning a roll out of larger 90 litre reusable sacks to replace 55 litre recycling boxes for up to 26,000 terraced homes with four foot alleyways.
It is estimated that 21,000 tonnes of recyclable goods have to be buried each year because residents are placing it in a purple bin or black sacks rather than the blue recycling bin.
Every tonne of residual waste from the purple bins costs twice as much to treat as recyclable waste, meaning an additional bill of around £1.2 million per year for council tax payers.
A successful pilot of the sacks in County ward last year drove up the amount collected by 20 percent.
Crews will start distributing them in Greenbank before rolling them out to relevant properties in Anfield, Central, County, Cressington, Everton, Fazakerley, Kensington and Fairfield, Kirkdale, Mossley Hill, Picton, Princes Park, Old Swan, Riverside, Speke Garston, St Michaels, Tuebrook and Warbreck by the end of April.
Councillor Steve Munby, Cabinet member for neighbourhoods, said: “The high proportion of terraced properties with narrow alleyways in Liverpool means we have a particular challenge in providing the best storage methods for residents.
“We know that the larger sacks proved popular when we carried out a pilot scheme last year because they are much bigger than the blue boxes.
“This is part of a much scheme to make our streets cleaner and greener in which we are replacing paving and carrying out other environmental improvements in four foot alleys to improve the conditions in which rubbish is presented for collection.
“We are also going to be increasing our recycling collections where we think it will make a difference, educating people about which bin to use, improving our response to flytipping and taking action against those that dump in our city as part of our commitment to make Liverpool cleaner and greener.”
In the coming months, there will be:
• An expansion of weekly recycling services to cover all 5,500 city centre apartment blocks – increasing the amount of recyclable waste collected by 114 tonnes per year
• A pilot of weekly recycling in some areas with terraced properties
• An education programme in primary schools to promote the importance of recycling
Following a request from Mayor Joe Anderson for the council to crackdown on environmental crime, the number of mobile teams tackling flytipping is being doubled from two to four with more emphasis on finding and fining those responsible, particularly builders and businesses illegally dumping trade waste.
And a team of 17 environmental enforcement officers from Kingdom are on the streets of the city centre and district centres issuing £80 fines to people caught dropping litter or allowing their dogs to foul.
RECYCLING IN NUMBERS:
33 – percentage of waste recycled in Liverpool (projected 2016/17)
18,000 – tonnes of green waste collected (2016/17)
21,000 – tonnes of recyclable items wrongly placed in the purple bin every year
28,000 – houses receiving a weekly black sack collection
196,000 – houses receiving an alternate weekly collection of purple/blue bins
