Have your say on waste strategy

As we reported in our recent Focuses, South Glos Council is asking local people to have their say on a new waste strategy. It aims to further reduce waste and increase recycling while also making significant savings.

 More ways to recycle

The new strategy proposes giving you more ways to recycle. It suggests extending the plastics recycling collection to include all plastics (except black items) rather than just plastic bottles. You would also be able to put small electrical items like irons in your green box.

SITA, who runs the recycling service for the council, has already started sending carpets, underlay, duvets, pillows and cushions from Sort It! centres for recycling as suggested in the strategy. If agreed, mattresses would be added to that list.

The strategy also suggests providing a better recycling service to residents living in flats.

Charges for garden waste

The strategy proposes charging for garden waste collection, like neighbouring authorities such as Bristol and Bath & North East Somerset. Not only would this help to make the big savings needed, it's also better for the environment if garden waste is composted in the garden, rather than transported elsewhere. Collecting the bins for people who opt into the service would be more efficient than visiting every house.

If you don't need the service, your green bin would be removed and you would not be charged. You would still be able to take your green waste to the Sort It! centre free of charge or you could compost your garden waste at home. If you do want garden waste collected but don't have a large garden, you could club together with neighbours to share the cost of a bin or the consultation asks your views on various options for single use bags for light users. We also made sure that those on certain benefits would get a 50% reduction.

Nobody wants to increase charging but the council's budget assumes that significant savings will be made. Simply stopping garden waste collections for the three winter months would only make a fraction of the savings possible through charging, leading to cuts in other services.

Have your say now

To have your say go to www.southglos.gov.uk/wasteconsultation - the consultation runs until 20 May 2013.