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Plastic waste set for kerbside collection
Thursday 25th June 2009, 8:45AM BST.
Kerbside collections of plastic bottles look set to be rolled out across Shropshire for the first time under new £1.2 million plans to slash amounts of waste going to landfill.
Shropshire Council has pledged to make the service available across the authority area under its draft corporate plan 2009-2013. It will be the first time that Shropshire residents have had plastic bottles collected.
The news comes just months after the former county, borough and district councils merged to form a single, unitary council.
The move will be funded to the tune of £1,199,500 with a budget set aside for the reduction of waste going to landfill sites.
Under the scheme the council also plans to increase the amount of household waste that is recycled and composted to 49 per cent.
And the first area to benefit will be Oswestry, where the new service is to be introduced early next year.
Gareth Proffitt, Shropshire Council spokesman, said today: “There have never been kerbside collections of plastic bottles anywhere before in the Shropshire Council area.
“Veolia will be managing the scheme on behalf of the council.
“Under their contract with the council, Veolia has put forward a number of proposals to maximise the amount of household waste that is recycled and to minimise the amount of household waste that is sent to landfill.
“One of these is the phased introduction of a kerbside plastic bottle collection service.
“A kerbside plastic bottle collection service is due to be introduced throughout Shropshire from early next year, starting in the former Oswestry borough area.
“Further information will be provided to local residents nearer the time.”
The draft plan also pledges that the council will complete the development of the integrated waste facility in Oswestry, providing improved recycling facilities to the community.
The shake-up comes after the Government introduced powers to fine local authorities which send too much waste to landfill.
By Tom Johannsen
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It’s about time !!!
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About time, I hope more Councils follow suit
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great
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About time to with the 2 weekly bin collections this will leave ample space in the waste bins reducing the smell and overflowing of them, escpecially in the summer time. Well done Council something right for a change!
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Great news.
Well done to the Council.
Now we need as consumers to reduce the amount of plastic bottles that we buy.
See this BBC report about so-called ‘mermaids’ tears’ (plastic particles thinner than the diameter of a human hair) which have found their way into the world’s oceans and which are contaminating marine life: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/6218698.stm
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Good, i’m fed up of driving to the recycling center to get rid of them.
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Could this story be followed up with enquiries about when Telford and Wrekin council are going to provide the same service?
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fantastic news
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So what happens to the plastic collected for recycling?
Large amounts are transported at huge cost to China, where people are employed in dreadful conditions to sort through the plastics. That which is separated is then reprocessed into clothing (such as fleeces) and transported at huge environmental cost back to the west.
Whilst kerb side collection of plastic waste may suit the local “greenies” without an understanding of what subsequently happens to it, we are simply shifting the problem to someone else.
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Re:rpt Barrington-Black
If that is the case, would you rather we dumpped in into land fill sites?!
About time it was collected, we drive ours every week to Tescos.
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@10 Pleased
no I am not saying that it should be dumped into landfill sites. I am saying we have a responsibility to ensure that any recycling is carried out in a way that does not damage the environment or other people. Simply shifting our waste half way across the world to be someone else’s problem is not responsible.
We need to reduce plastic consumption, that largely begins with packaging, plastic bags, milk containers etc.
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more council tax moeny being wasted on green issues when will the beurocrats and the UK stop spending MY CASH!
At least this is popular. It takes a conservative council to finally give the people what they want.
When we get into power in London, david cameron has promised to bring back weekly rubbish collections all over the UK
I cant wait save me going to the tip all the time – weekly rubbish collections is cleaner and better for all and we will cut taxes for small businesses and married couples too because we are the best
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this is long over due
if the council gave a damn about recycling they would have done this years ago
good news though
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well done Shropshire Council…
Of course I remember in 2006 when SABC tried to introduce plastic bottle collections and the county council blocked the move
all this is shown in the committee reports at the time
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in powys where we live they have collected all types of plastic for years
shropshrie is well behind because you lot dont invest in public sector like the welsh assembly do
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CJ
What sort and how big a bin would we be getting this time to go along-side the other 3 bins i have to store at my property? I dont mind recycling but my home will start to look like a home for bins!!!
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The plain and simple fact? We wouldn’t have to deal with this problem to begin with if people didn’t use so much plastic. Why do people buy water bottles? Why not get a BPA-free bottle and be done with it?
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At last someone has seen sense, this is long overdue, every time I have had the oppurtunity to speak with our recycle reps I have asked for this. Just hope the rest of the county has this facility very soon.
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can i just point something out here…. in shrewsbury town centre no recycling at all is done because busineses in the town centre who contribute to 75% of all waste in shrewsbury, cannot have different wheelie bins and boxes. so regardless of what the council decides to do it wont make a difference at all!
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rpt Barrington-Black, I agree that we should be recycling this waste (and creating more jobs) here in Shropshire rather than sending our waste to China.
However, what do you think of this article from 18th August 2009 (‘Sending waste to China saves carbon emissions’, Guardian)? It highlights research by WRAP which shows that recycling in China is still less destructive than landfilling here.
I agree, though, that it is our problem, that we cannot shift responsibility elsewhere and that we must ultimately reduce our consumption of plastic here in Shropshire.
I mentioned the mermaids’ tears in the oceans (#5). People might be interested in a very short film on YouTube from 19 days ago (‘World Oceans Day Statement on Plastic Pollution’), which summarises this problem powerfully and succinctly.
We are going to ultimately have to hit this problem at the source.
Ireland introduced a tax on plastic bags in 2002.
China banned plastic bags in 2008.
It may be some time before countries start to deal with plastic bottles at source, but I wonder if our politicians are bold enough to push for this sort of measure here in the UK?
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Huw Peach,
I have not seen the Guardian article (and given you date it as August 2009 assume that is a mistake.)
I have no issue with recycling. The issues are,
1, we should reduce consumption of plastics, which would reduce the need to recycle.
2, recycling plastics is largely manually intensive (sorting) which is why it is shipped to China as labour costs are cheaper.
3. Recycling plastic, after sorting, is energy intensive, melting plastic, pulverising and granulising it.
I can not imagine the average Shropshire resident would,
1. Work for wage rates paid to Chinese workers for sorting.
2. tolerate a mountain of plastic waiting sorting and processing.
3. agree to the industrial smelters and pulverisers being in shropshire to process the sorted plastics.
Whilst it appears green to recycle plastics, all that is being done is transport the problem elsewhere, and as can be seen by the majority of posts here, and on similar threads, the average Shropshire resident really does not care what happens, as long as it is done somewhere else.
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It’s about time.
Lets hope we go back to weekly collections.
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fantasitc – abnout time too
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Sorry, rpt Barrington-Black, it should read 2008, not 2009,
Would you not agree, though, that, despite the distances and the energy involved, recycling this plastic is still preferable (in terms of saved energy and reduced carbon emissions) to landfilling or incinerating it?
I agree with you that first of all we should reduce our consumption of plastics and re-use where possible.
Consumers should be able to refill empty containers at supermarkets, manufacturers should be fined for unnecessary packaging, and packaging should be deisigned to be recycled more easily.
In light of the gigantic spinning gyre of plastic rubbish in the middle of the Pacific Ocean (see New Internationalist 1st September 2008, ‘Sea of Garbage’), what do you think of action to reduce plastic consumption at source taken by Ireland and China (#20)?
Don’t you think our government should also ban plastic bags?
Bangladesh banned them in 2002. Papua New Guinea, Bhutan, Taiwan and Botswana have also banned them.
I think the average Shropshire resident DOES care about what happens to their plastic waste after they throw it away.
The popular move towards plastics recycling is one step on the road to greater awareness about the wider issues.
Now we have to deal with these issues at source, don’t we?
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great
well done all
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its a good step forward, fair play, it will make a massive difference for me for how much rubbish i chuck out, so lets stop moaning at the Councils hold your head up and say actually do you know what, fair play they have actually done what people wanted and this is good news for the planet, for the economy and for shropshire people
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so they do listen after all?????
maybe they will drop the incinerator now too and really give the people what they want and need, better recycling services
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brilliant
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“shropshrie is well behind because you lot dont invest in public sector like the welsh assembly do”
That’s because we don’t have any money left to invest after paying to subsidise Wales.
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Shouldn’t “we” NOT be using plastic in the first place?
Why all those plastic bags at the supermarket -WHAT’s wrong with paper bags?
WHY do we need food wrapped in plastic? what’s wrong with paper /cardboard?
WHY do we need plastic bottles?
What’s wrong with glass?
WHY are other goods encased in plastic?
I really don’t see why the onus is placed on us to deal with the problem. WE don’t really have a choice in how our purchaes are packaged.
IF plastic wasn’t used in the first place -then there wouldn’t be a problem !!
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brilliant – the sooner this excellent scheme is rolled out, the better
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