By Cllr Norman Jorgensen
Wokingham Borough recycling rate is around 54%.
The recycling rate for waste disposed at the Household Waste Recycling Centres is much higher than from the kerbside and last time I was at Smallmead it was running at about 80%.
As Shadow Exec member for Environment and Leisure, I want to help the Borough save money by achieving lower volumes of residual (blue bag) waste and maximising the proportion of total waste recycled from the kerbside.
The Lib Dem/Labour coalition now running the Council has decided to stop supplying liner bags for the food waste kitchen caddies.
Our Conservative Group disagrees with this decision and last week challenged the decision at a Scrutiny meeting.
The Lib/Lab Coalition wouldn’t listen.
So why do we think the removal of free caddy liners is a bad idea?
We need to encourage a greater take up of the food waste recycling service because the disposal costs of food waste through recycling are much lower than sending food waste to an energy-to-waste plant or to landfill.
Not supplying caddy liners is a disincentive to using the service, in a recent newspaper article it seems the Lib Dem leader agrees with us.
The Council budget for 2022/23 has an extra saving of £350,000 built into it which is meant to be delivered by getting residents to recycle considerably more food waste.
This would be a 70% increase on the recycling rate in 2021/22.
It appears only around 30% of food waste is currently recycled, the remainder is put in blue bags. If the lack of caddy liners bags puts people off recycling, then this savings target will be impossible to achieve, thus leaving a huge financial hole to fill.
When Conservatives introduced the blue waste bags, and restricted the number provided, it was aimed at encouraging residents to use the recycling service more. This was successful and the recycling rate shot up immediately.
Sometimes it takes a bit of a shock to encourage us to change our habits.
The recent decision to further restrict the number of blue bags will hopefully result in a further increase in recycling. However, it appears the one size fits all Lib/Lab decision was not thought through thoroughly and we are pressing for more bags to made available to those whose disability or family circumstances necessitate creating more waste.
It is our Conservative group policy to retain weekly waste collections and not move to using wheely bins. We feel that residents should have the choice to dispose of waste every week.
Many people have nowhere to store waste or wheelie bins and we don’t want parts of Wokingham Borough to look like parts of Reading where wheely bins parked on pavements create an eyesore and cause an obstruction.
The Lib Dem/Labour coalition now running Wokingham Borough Council is currently consulting the public on their plans for future waste collection. This includes retaining weekly food waste collection but collecting general and recycling waste less frequently.
They also propose further limiting the amount of general waste households are allowed to put out for collection. They propose changing the service right away and give the rationale for this as a cost saving, but it is difficult to see how in the short term this would be achieved.
This sham consultation does not provide the option of retaining weekly collection and the proposal to move to bi-weekly or tri-weekly collection is unlikely to deliver the benefits claimed.
The current waste contract runs until 2026 and the cost of the collection service is built into budgets. The collection trucks were specifically designed and purchased to service this contract with separate compartments for food, general and dry recycling waste.
In addition, the budget for purchasing blue bags is £350,000 per year.
This is the continue-as-is option.
The coalition proposes adopting wheely bins for general and recycling waste, collecting general and recycling waste every two or possibly three weeks. Let’s assume bi-weekly where general waste is collected one week and recycling the other, with food collected every week.
The collection truck would therefore turn up at your door every week as now, but only take some of your waste. It is difficult to see savings being negotiated for this with the service provider.
If we assume the cost per household for two wheely bins is £100 then the cost of supplying them to every one of the approximately 70,000 household in the Borough is £7 million. We tested these figures with Borough officers last week and they seem right. If the Council borrows money to purchase the wheely bins the interest alone at 5% will be £350,000 per year. If interest rates are higher and the Council wishes to pay off the loan, as it would, then the figure is higher.
This means that the cost of introducing a new less frequent waste collection service would be higher than carrying on as we are now, since the annual cost of purchasing the blue bags is £350,000.
It appears that the only way the Lib Dem/Labour coalition could make significant savings in the short term is by restricting the amount of general waste you can put out for collection.
Retaining weekly general waste and recycling is not given as an option in the Council’s consultation, so if you wish to retain weekly waste collections, please sign our petition at: https://www.wokinghamconservatives.org.uk/campaigns/keep-weekly-bin-collections-campaign
We will present the petition at a Council meeting and try to get the ruling Lib Dem/Labour coalition to change their minds.
Cllr Norman Jorgensen is the Shadow Executive Member for Environment, Sport and Leisure and Conservative Member for Maiden Erlegh Ward
