RECYCLING SCHEME

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No matter how green your credentials are, most people need bin men to recycle their waste. A national report shows how well councils across the East Midlands, and the country, are at saving the countryside from being ripped open for landfill sites. Government figures have looked at how every council in England copes with cycling and it found huge differences.

There are wide variations, even in neighbouring authorities, and shows that some councils really are, well, rubbish. Across the East Midlands, there are councils recycling just 3% or 4% of what we put in our wheelie bins, red boxes and refuse sacks. The region has one council recycling 44% of the waste that residents dump. That is ten times better than councils just next door.

Many authorities have successfully applied for government money to give residents extra bins or boxes to get their schemes up and running. Not everyone is impressed with the changes that followed, and hundreds of Leicestershire people have tried to get Hinckley and Bosworth Borough Council to re-think its decision to turn collections from weekly to fortnightly.

This was part of its recycling drive and it wants residents to put more waste out for recycling. But the changes did not go down well, although it has refused to back down and new collection rotas continue. There really is no set pattern to how recycling is carried out.

Some people have a summer collection of garden waste with a green bin. Others have boxes or bags, for paper collections one week, followed by bottles and cans the week after. Government figures show an average home produces about 25kg of waste each week, much of which goes in the bins.

But some is taken to the local civic amenity site, better known as the tip. There is a drive to dig fewer holes in the countryside and pack them with waste, but instead to re-use waste with recycling plants for paper and bottles or even compost sites. Mansfield District Council is languishing near the bottom of the official table, with just 1% of waste recycled in 1998/9. That has only risen to 4% in four years, according to the government figures.

The council claims to have at least tripled that and can now count on figures in the low teens. Even that is a long way short of other authorities. It introduced a blue bin scheme three years ago, with 83% of homes in the north Notts area using the twin bin system, and this will be extended to more homes.

The council is also looking at bringing in a garden waste collection next year, and employing two project officers to inspect bins and help educate residents. It is aiming to hold informative displays in public areas and produce stickers for wheeled bins listing the materials which should be put in the blue recycling bin.

The national figures show up a trend where councils in urban areas do not fare so well in the recycling league table. Those living in smaller homes and flats struggle to find room for extra boxes in their homes. More bins and extra boxes cannot easily be left outside terraced homes, without gardens, and high rise flats.

And trends show more affluent and rural councils do better in the league tables. Daventry District Council, a large rural authority in west Northants, towers over the list and is not far from recycling half the rubbish its residents throw out, with a 44% rate. Its 15% figure from 1998-99 is better than most councils are achieving now. (Source: BBC News)

A few weeks ago my wife put the bin out as usual one Wednesday evening and it was so full that the lid was up but all the rubbish was secure. On Thursday morning, as I was going to work, the bin lorry was at the top of our drive. I saw a binman take some of the rubbish out of our bin and drop it on to the street!

I was incensed. I felt like getting hold of him and dragging him in to the real world. Why didn't he put this rubbish into another bin that wasn't so full, as some of our neighbours' bins are not full to the top? Or why not just walk over to the lorry and put the rubbish in? Consequently, we had to call the council to come out in a smaller van to collect the discarded rubbish.

Also, in the past, our bin has been missed. The binmen just seem to want to get the job done as quickly as possible. What if they had to do it the old way, walk to people's houses, pick up a bin on their shoulder, carry it to the lorry and then take it back again? They couldn't manage it. They should be taught a bit about public relations. As you can see, this incident really wound me up as we live in a society where dropping litter is susceptible to a heavy fine. Noel J. Kenny

Plans for a kerbside recycling scheme in areas of the city have been abandoned, for the time being. The issue was highlighted when residents in Chester Green discovered they would not become part of the council's Rethink Rubbish scheme, which was being rolled out across the city this year. Rethink Rubbish is Derby City Council's "twin bin" household waste collection scheme. But residents in terraced houses have been told they cannot be included at present because there is not the space to accommodate a brown and a black bin in their gardens or back yards.

It is believed hundreds of houses across Derby could be affected for the same reason. Derby City Council has said it is working on solutions to the problem and it is also making every effort to ensure residents have nearby provisions for recycling. In Chester Green, recycling facilities will be situated on a garage site at the rear of Chester Green Road. These will replace the current recycling facilities in the car park of the Coach and Horses pub, in Mansfield Road, which is no longer suitable because of development works.

Some residents in Normanton, which faces a similar problem over lack of space for bins, started a pilot scheme in which they are supplied with blue boxes for cans, glass and plastic and bags for paper and textiles, but no brown bins. They can also apply for a free home composter. (Source: Derby Evening Telegraph)

Thousands more homes are being brought into a Derby recycling scheme. About 6,000 householders in the Alvaston area are now being included in the project, with several other areas in the city already covered. Council chiefs hope the extension will help it meet its government target of recycling 30% of household waste by March 2006.

Since the scheme started in April 2003, the rate has risen from 12% to the current 21.5%. Councillor Sara Bolton, cabinet member for environment and direct services, said, "Our 30% target is one of the toughest in the country, but, thanks to the massive support of residents, we are well on the way. We should be proud of the fact that we are preventing thousands of tonnes of paper, plastic, steel, aluminium, glass, textiles and garden waste being buried in the ground forever."