Getting ready for new waste collections

Before Christmas I was asked about the background work that Aberdeenshire Council had done before deciding on the new method of collecting rubbish – which has just been introduced in the Banff area. It comes to our area next year. Everything apart from rubbish and glass will go on one recycling wheelie bin.

Waste strategy officer Matt Davis tells me that council officers, with Zero Waste Scotland, looked at other councils’ dry recycling services to see how they performed and what we could expect from different dry recycling services in terms of kilo of recycling per household per year, which was then multiplied up to tonnages and converted to recycling percentages. This exercise did not include garden waste for the reasons he outlined during the talk to the community council forum in November.

He says it is important to remember that overall recycling percentages are made up of many different factors of which a kerbside recycling service is only one part. With this in mind benchmarking against overall recycling rates would not have been applicable.

“We do believe that the service we are introducing will make recycling easy for householders though, with most waste in one recycling bin.

“The polytunnel in Forres is run by a charity, Moray Wastebusters. We have a few similar arrangements here in our household waste recycling centres (HWRCs) such as Banchory, Ellon, Macduff and Peterhead. These facilities are reuse containers – basically shipping containers which people can leave any unwanted, but reusable items. The charities often ‘cherry pick’ the best items for resale off-site through their shops or other reuse and the general public can pick anything up which they want for free from the container at the HWRC.

“At present there are none of these in Kincardine and Mearns; there is an ongoing review and they may become more widespread in future. There are numerous other opportunities for reuse via charity shops, Freecycle etc which we encourage people to use. “

A HWRC is to be provided at Badentoy industrial estate, removing the need for the current service in the Asda car park.

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