Included in the consultation will be either a switch from fortnightly residual waste collections to monthly or three-weekly, with the changes to be introduced next year.
The Labour-run council serves around 91,000 residents and recorded a recycling rate of 62% for 2021/22 and “is forecast to be similar” for 2022/23.
However, the Welsh government has set legally-binding targets on all councils which means Torfaen must achieve 70% in 2024/25.Torfaen said a failure to meet this could result in a “£100,000 fine for every 1% missed”.
In a report approved by the council on 9 February, the council said that in recent years, it has “underperformed against targets with recycling tonnages collected stagnating and general waste tonnage increasing”.
The council said it is likely to “fall significantly short” of the 70% target, and set out four options to improve this, with two of them making it to consultation.
Measures
The Welsh Government commissioned WRAP to deliver the collaborative change programme free of charge to Welsh council’s to help improve recycling, circular economy and service efficiency outcomes.
WRAP undertook a report into Torfaen’s service and published this last year. The report carried out an analysis of four different options, which alongside three weekly and monthly also included two fortnightly options with different bins.
Future changes to waste and recycling services in Torfaen will be discussed by scrutiny members next week.
You can read more here: https://t.co/Q4OurkLyUU
Email your views to scrutiny@torfaen.gov.uk by Wednesday 8 Feb.#TorfaenRecycles #CutTheCarbonTorfaen pic.twitter.com/pEqd050h71
— Torfaen Council 🏴🇺🇦 (@torfaencouncil) February 3, 2023
Options
Option one was to maintain fortnightly collections but reduce the size of the wheeled bin from 140 litre to 120 litre. WRAP said this would reduce costs by £100,00 per year, but only increase the overall recycling rate to 64.3%, so the target would still be missed. Set up costs would also be £739,483.
Option two was to maintain fortnightly collections but only provide residents with two non-reusable sacks instead of wheeled bins. While this had higher savings, at £114,00 per year, and lower start up costs at £362,000, the rate would also only raise to 64.3%. This is insufficient to hit the 70% target.
The third option will see residual collection frequency reduce from fortnightly to three-weekly, retaining the 140-litre wheeled bin.
This would increase recycling to 66.1% within a year of being introduced and will “solidify reaching the current 64% target and Torfaen would be showing progress is being made to achieving 70%”.
There will be implementation costs of 108,000, while savings will be £380,000 a year.
Under option four, residual collection frequencies will reduce from fortnightly to four-weekly, retaining the 140-litre wheeled bin. This option would deliver savings of £495,000 a year and recycling would rise to 67.7%. Implementation costs would be £108,000.
Two options
On the back of the Wrap report, the council is only progressing with options three and four in its consultation. This is because the council said it can only consult on things it will realistically introduce, and as the two other options won’t hit the legally binding target, they can not be included.
The report also highlighted that recycling rates in Torfaen increased by almost 10% following the introduction of smaller residual bins in 2015.
The report added: “It should be noted that any changes to the collection of residual waste, whether that be capacity or frequency will take some time to embed and become the norm.
“Any resistance from residents is commonly short lived and residents quickly adapt to a new service. There is strong evidence that when these changes have been successfully implemented by other Welsh authorities it can lead to significant progress towards the 70% recycling.”
Increasing what is recycled and decreasing what is sent to landfill or EfW is ultimately good for the environment
- Simon Anthony, Torfaen council
‘Carbon reduction’
Simon Anthony, Torfaen council’s head of recycling and environment, said: “Increasing what is recycled and decreasing what is sent to landfill or Energy from Waste is ultimately good for the environment. It supports the council’s carbon reduction aspirations and recycling more and improving the local environment is also one of our priorities for the county.
“Torfaen has performed well historically but there is still far too many items that could be recycled weekly being put out with general waste. Without change we will not meet the targets set by Welsh Government.
“We wish to engage the public next on what will help us increase recycling rates and what we can do to help them to recycle more.”
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