Seven recommendations senior councillors will be asked to back to improve recycling rates in Flintshire

Flintshire’s Cabinet members will be asked to approve recommendations on future recycling and waste services when they meet on Tuesday, 21 September.

The proposed recommendations are the result of feedback from seminars held in July with councillors to gauge views on the current recycling and waste services and how recycling rates could be increased.

The council says that whilst the current waste strategy does not come to an end until 2025, the next national target to be achieved is 70% of domestic and municipal waste to be recycled by 2024/25.

“It is now important that the Council starts to plan for the future, assess the ongoing impact on waste volumes post-COVID and consider what more could be done to increase recycling rates to ensure that we achieve these national targets.” The council said.

Flintshire’s Cabinet Member for Streetscene, Councillor Glyn Banks, said:

“The council’s and residents’ recycling success is to be celebrated; however, with changes to the classifications of what waste can be categorised as recycled and the changing behaviours of our residents in response to the pandemic, which have both impacted on our recycling performance, we now need to look at additional measures to ensure that we achieve the target of 70% by 2024/25.”

Flintshire’s Chief Officer for Streetscene and Transportation, Katie Wilby, said:

“It is widely recognised that not recycling our waste has substantial environmental implications, which must be addressed to mitigate future impact on the planet. ”

“There is also a lost financial opportunity by not recycling our waste. There is a cost for every tonne of waste that is treated or landfilled, whilst the sale of the recycled products raises a small amount of income for the Council.”

Recommendations include:

1. Clear information for residents to improve awareness and understanding of what can and cannot be recycled.
2. Side waste enforcement which has been re-introduced this month, following a suspension of enforcement in March 2020 because of the Covid-19 pandemic.  During this time, the Council collected an additional 3,000 tonnes of residual waste from residential properties, a 12% increase in comparison to the previous year, so there is a need to re-introduce the three stage approach to encourage increased recycling.
3. Introduction of Absorbent Hygiene Product (AHP) Collections for households who may need help to dispose of disposable nappies or incontinence products, which will complement the current medical waste collection service.
4. Household Recycling Centres (HRCs) – recommendations are:
   • A booking system for hazardous wastes such as asbestos
   • The reintroduction of black bag splitting to ensure that all recyclable materials brought to site are pre-sorted and separated correctly.
   • Van Permit System will be reviewed in order to make it clearer to service users what type and size of vehicles will or will not be issued a permit.
5. Continuation of the repair and reuse of items that could be deemed as waste but can be fixed, repurposed or reused at centres like the Repair and Reuse Centre in Buckley, which is being developed in partnership with Groundworks NW and Refurbs Flintshire.
6. A pilot project to be introduced in a controlled area to explore the possibility for local recycling targets in some communities to identify whether any benefits, such as financial savings, could be returned to the community to support local environmental groups to continue their good work or support community projects.
7. To expand the electronic tag system for brown bins countywide, following a successful pilot scheme.  This is an alternative to the sticker/tag that is manually issued each year once a resident has subscribed to the garden waste collection service and will be implemented for all subscriptions to the 2022 garden waste collection service and also those residents who are registered to receive assisted black bin collections.