Introduction of Weekly Food Waste Collection Service

Overview

Rochdale Borough Council approved improvements to its waste collection service in a bid to increase recycling rates and save up to £1 million a year.

The council’s cabinet has approved a proposal to roll out weekly food waste collections in a bid to provide an improved service and increase recycling rates. The new service will roll out in October 2015 and forms part of the council’s invest to save programme; providing savings of up to £1 million per year to help ease the saving requirements of other essential public services. The new service will introduce weekly food and garden waste collections to households in the borough in the following way:

• Collect general waste bins (dark green bin) together with food and garden bins/caddies in week 1

• Collect mixed recycling bins (light green bin with a blue lid) together with food and garden bins/caddies in week 2

• Collect paper and card recycling bins (blue bin) together with food and garden bins/caddies in week 3

All households will be provided with free compostable liners and a caddy to help residents recycle more food waste.

This new, improved service will mean households will now have two waste collections every week instead of one.

The borough is currently one of the lower performing boroughs in Greater Manchester; recycling around 34.5%. The borough’s recycling rate is lower than the national average of 43.5% and below the 2020 European target of 50%. Specifically:

• Like all councils, Rochdale Council is facing increasing financial pressure to reduce costs and needs to meet future recycling legislation and targets
• Rochdale Borough Council currently pays £306.62 a tonne for the general waste it collects from dark green bins. If the council does not increase recycling and reduce the amount of general waste,  the total cost of waste disposal could increase by as much as £2 million by 2016/17
• To achieve an annual £1 million saving, we need to increase the recycling rate to 45% by March 2017
• Rochdale Borough is the last borough in Greater Manchester to roll out a borough wide collection of food waste. Introducing a separate food waste collection will help us achieve the 45% recycling target and associated cost savings   

The change in service will take effect from 5 October 2015. All households will receive further details of the change in service together with a new bin collection calendar closer to the time.

Additional information

A copy of the new service proposal can be obtained below or by writing to Freepost LET’S RECYCLE MORE.

A number of documents can be downloaded here which give you more information on the proposal and explain the reasons why the council needs to change its waste and recycling service:

• Cabinet report with details on the service change
• Waste Management Strategy
• Waste Management Policy