Harrow council has approved plans to offer recycling collections to 8,000 flatted properties in the London borough as part of plans to give all households access to recycling by spring 2012.
The local authoritys cabinet last week (May 19) rubber-stamped proposals to start rolling-out 1,280 litre communal bins to 1,000 locations across the North West London council area later this month.
The proposals will allow residents in flats to recycle cans, tins, card, paper, glass bottles and jars, plastic bottles and containers. Harrow said the distribution of the communal bins is expected to be completed by the end of March 2012.
Funding for the roll-out is being provided by the London Waste and Recycling Board, which awarded Harrow 381,000 for flats recycling in March 2011 as part of a 3.7 million funding award spread across 18 projects (see letsrecycle.com story).
According to the councils cabinet minutes, the 381,000 is expected to be split into 341,000 spent on procuring 1,000 communal bins and 40,000 spent on staffing resources for one year.
Harrow is also hopeful of receiving 5,000 from the Recycle for London campaign to help promote the flats recycling scheme. The council has made a preliminary application for the funding and is awaiting further confirmation.
Improvement
It is anticipated that the provision of recycling facilities for flatted properties will lead to an extra 1,500 tonnes of waste being recycled each year and could, potentially, add 1.5% to the councils existing recycling rate. Harrow said its recycling and composting rate is expected to top 50% for the 2010/11 financial year.
Commenting on the 50% recycling rate, Councillor Phillip O’Dell, portfolio holder for environment at Harrow council, said: To recycle half of our domestic waste is a great achievement and I’d like to say a big thank you to everyone who has helped us reach this important milestone.
“As well as the obvious environmental benefits, there are real financial benefits to recycling. Few people think about the cost of processing waste when they put out their rubbish, but even with our impressive recycling rate, disposing of our waste will still cost us 5.6m this year.
He added that he hoped that the extra recycling facilities for flats would lead to the council being able to announce even further improvements in the future.
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