Weekly collections would be costly

I write in response to the letter in last week’s edition entitled ‘Choice over bins should be ours’. This was following the recent announcement by Government that they would be making £250m available to councils which guarantee weekly waste collections for five years.

I would like to make it clear that Warwick District Council still provides a weekly waste collection, just in a different form. Non-recyclable waste is collected from the grey bin one week and recyclable waste is collected from red boxes/bags and the green bin the following week. Food waste can be disposed of on a weekly basis either in the grey bin or the green bin should households wish to do so, although we do encourage residents to recycle as much food waste through the green bin scheme as possible.

A wide range of items can be recycled through the red box/bag and green bin recycling schemes, and because of this it’s simply not necessary to empty the grey bin every week because there should be very little waste left in it. The council is always investigating opportunities to expand the range of materials collected through the recycling schemes and hopes to be able to collect more types of plastic packaging as part of the new waste collection contract starting in April 2013. This will mean that even more of our waste can be recycled, reducing waste in the grey bin even further.

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The move back to weekly rubbish collections would not only be a huge step backward in reducing recycling rates, but would also cost local taxpayers millions of pounds. The number of collection vehicles and crews required to provide the weekly rubbish service would double and there would also be additional charges to landfill the extra waste. - Cllr Dave Shilton, Warwick District Council.