New Garden Waste Collection Scheme Agreed

9 August, 2004

North Norfolk District Councillors have agreed new arrangements for collecting garden waste, after a grant from the Government made a much bigger scheme possible to help the Council meet tough recycling targets.

In 2002/03, 32 per cent of the UK's recycled waste was compostable, according to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), and NNDC will be able to collect such material from many more households than originally envisaged.

The grant from Defra's National Waste Minimisation and Recycling Fund came after NNDC had begun to roll out a garden waste collection scheme using brown wheeled bins. That roll-out was suspended in June to allow the logistics of the bigger scheme to be worked out.

On Monday, 9 August, NNDC's Cabinet confirmed that fortnightly collections through the new scheme will start next year, costing £25 a year (less than £1 a collection). Anyone who signs up in September and October 2004 will receive their brown bin for free (it would normally cost up to £45). Their bins will be delivered, with waste being collected, by the end of the financial year.

A dedicated telephone 'hotline' and other channels for signing up for these collections will be set up - and publicised - before orders start being taken on 1 September. This two-month 'incentive' period is designed to get as many people as possible signed up to the scheme at once, so the process of buying and delivering the bins can then be as cost-effective as possible, and the Defra grant can be spent - as it must be - by the end of March 2005.

The £1.5 million total Defra funding is also being used to offset the cost of the District's new Twin Bins collection of household rubbish and recyclables. NNDC must recycle 36 per cent of household waste in 2005/06 (and reached a level of only 17 per cent in 2003/04 using a sack collection scheme).

The Council needs to minimise the amount of rubbish (including compostable garden waste like grass cuttings and leaves) that goes into landfill, which is expensive, creates harmful greenhouse gas emissions and spoils our precious countryside. Also, failing to meet the recycling targets could result in the Council being fined by the Government.

More than 2000 people had paid £30 to sign up to the original brown bins scheme. While they are all currently having their garden waste collected, some still have to use sacks provided by the Council because of difficulties establishing collection rounds. All these people will be given next year's collection for free, so they do not lose out for having signed up early, and to thank them for their patience in the interim period.

In the early stages of the new scheme, however, the garden waste collected from some remote areas may still go into the normal waste stream, because it would not be cost-effective - or environmentally-responsible - for a dedicated garden waste collection vehicle to make a round trip to very few properties.

NOTES FOR EDITOR

The new garden waste collection will see households using 240-litre wheeled bins to dispose of:

• grass cuttings
• hedge clippings
• weeds
• leaves
• flowers
• plants
• vegetable tops
• prunings
• bark
• twigs
• small branches
• Christmas trees

Smaller garden waste bins will be available to those who want, but for the same £25 collection charge.

NNDC also promotes home composting, and has teamed up with Blackwall to offer cut-price home composters to its residents. Call 0870 849 4857 for details.

For details of the Government's policies on waste and recycling, waste and recycling statistics, recycling credits, and the National Waste Minimisation and Recycling Fund, visit: http://www.defra.gov.uk/environment/waste/

ENDS