Wrexham council will be working with CK Services to introduce the new boxes to residents from next week (May 16), and the council expects all of the containers to be delivered within three weeks.
Wrexham’s current recycling system consists of a green box for items including foil, cans and plastic bottles, a blue bag for paper, and a green waste bin for items such as corrugated cardboard and grass cuttings.
The roll out follows a recycling trial conducted last year involving 350 households. Half were supplied with a ‘recycling trolley’ consisting of three stacked boxes, and the other half trialled the ‘Let’s Sort it Out’ system.
Each stacked box in the trolley is used for different recyclable materials including one allocated for paper and card, one for plastic bottles and mixed cans and the other for glass bottles, jars and corrugated cardboard.
Other properties in the ‘Let’s Sort it Out’ trial used the existing green box and blue bag for recycling, but also received an extra black box for glass bottles and jars.
Recycling targets
Councillor David Bithell, lead member for environment and transport, said: “The new wheelie boxes which complement the new kerbside sort recycling vehicles will play a huge part in ensuring that Wrexham is able to meet its future recycling targets.
“We hope that the new system will really encourage those households who have them to recycle as much as possible.”
Alongside the new boxes, the borough council is introducing new specialised recycling collection vehicles which enable a wider range of materials to be collected. The new vehicles are funded by a grant from the Waste Resources Action Programme (WRAP) Cymru and are being provided by manufacturer Romaquip (see letsrecycle.com story).
The county borough council hopes the new boxes will increase recycling and help achieve the 64% statutory recycling target set by the Welsh Government for 2019-2020. Wrexham recorded a 55% recycling rate in 2015.
Several Welsh councils have turned to ‘stackable’ recycling boxes for collecting household recycling in recent months, including Conwy and Blaenau Gwent (see letsrecycle.com story).
The trolley container, which is designed and manufactured by Straight, now a part of the OnePlastics group, is intended to be more easily wheeled out for collection than separate containers.
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