New waste and recycling collection calendar on its way
City of York Council is encouraging residents to look out for their new waste and recycling calendar for 2015/16, which will be hitting doormats soon.
New calendar out soon
From this week households across the city will start to receive their new calendar which outlines when collections are taking place between November 2015 and October 2016, including collections over the Christmas and New Year period.
The council announced earlier this year that residents are set to benefit from two additional garden waste collections this autumn, at the end of the current collection season, as well as improved recycling collections over Christmas.
This will ensure that the maximum time residents will wait for their recycling collection is three weeks, instead of four weeks. The extra garden waste collections will give residents an opportunity to dispose of autumn green waste before winter sets in.
The new calendars also provide tips and advice on what items can and can’t be recycled including paper/cardboard, glass, plastic bottles, cans/tins and if applicable garden waste.
Cllr Andrew Waller, Executive Member for Environmental Services, said: “We are pleased to be improving recycling collections for residents over Christmas as they have asked us to help them to recycle more of their waste. By working together we can reduce the cost to the council of Landfill Tax and to help us become the Greenest City in the North. We encourage residents to look out for their new collection calendars which will be hitting doormats soon and to let us know if they have not been received by the end of October.”
Flats, rural properties and also city centre properties serviced by St Nicks recycling team will receive collection information in December. For any queries about the St Nicks recycling service in the city centre please go to http://www.stnicks.org.uk/ or telephone 01904 411821.
Residents are asked to ensure their bins or boxes are presented by 7am on the day of their collection, but no earlier than 7pm the evening before.
Residents can find their additional collection dates on the new calendar and also online.
Look up collections at www.york.gov.uk/refuselookup . Households which have not received their calendar by the end of October can contact the council on 01904 551551 ycc@york.gov.uk for a replacement copy.
Find out more about waste and recycling in York by following @CYCWaste on Twitter or ‘like’ CYCWaste on Facebook.
Fly tipping removal costs £68,652
Instances of fly tipping in York have increased in each of the last 3 years.
Over £68,000 was spent last year cleaning up the mess. However only one perpetrator was prosecuted.
Part of the issue can be traced back to the closure of the Beckfield Lane amenity site.
There have also been problems with some waste collection rounds while the charges for the removal of bulky waste have rocketed.
Additional waste collection days agreed
Residents are set to benefit from two additional garden waste collections this winter as well as improved recycling collections over Christmas, following approval at a public decision session today.
Households which receive garden waste collections across the city will benefit from two additional collections in November.
In addition to this, improvements will be made to recycling collections over Christmas to ensure that the maximum time residents will wait for their recycling collection is three weeks, instead of four weeks.
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Extra green bin emptying this winter. Christmas waste collection arrangements to be announced
Plans to empty Green Bins on two additional occasions this winter will be considered on 10th August.
An officer report outlines options to either
- have two additional green waste collections in November or
- one additional collection in November with one additional collection in January.
Last year the then Labour led Council was heavily criticised for ending green bin emptying at the end of October. Only a by election win for the Liberal Democrats in the Westfield ward prompted the newly balanced Council to add in an additional collection in January.
The published report fails to indicate how much green waste was collected during this January collection which was also intended to pick up discarded Christmas trees.
Nor is any weekly collection volume data is included.
The same meeting will confirm bin emptying arrangements for the Christmas period. The paper includes plans to improve recycling collections by reducing from four weeks to three weeks the maximum time that people would need to wait between collections.
Roughly half the city missed one recycling collection during the Christmas period last year and so had to wait 4 weeks between collections.
The Council have yet to publish details of any pre decision all party discussion meeting. In the absence of such a meeting residents will be able to make representations at the meeting on 10th and also to make written representations.
In its Emergency Budget the new Lib Dem-Conservative Executive confirmed that it would reverse plans to charge for the first green bin per house – built into the council budget by Labour in February. The Emergency Budget also included provision to return two green bin collections over the winter. These winter collections were scrapped by Labour in April 2013.
The report will be considered at a Decision Session on the 10th August by Cllr Andrew Waller, Executive Member for the Environment. Cllr Waller commented:
“We are responding to residents and helping them to recycle more for the city. Two additional green bin collections over the winter will help people to deal with leaves and woody waste which cannot be easily home composted.
“Residents have been faced with the prospect of putting their garden waste into their grey bins or driving to their nearest Recycling Centre.
“As well as improving the regular green bin collection service, I am also working with officers to look at options to help the recycling efforts of households that do not have a green waste collection. If we are to reach our target to take recycling to over 50% we need a city-wide effort.
“In addition, we are outlining proposals to stop what we saw last Christmas. In almost half the city households were left waiting a month for their recycling to be collected. We need to offer a better basic service to residents than the one they endured under the previous Labour Council.
“The communication plan we are working on engages with residents associations, parish councils and partners to help get the messages out during the autumn.”
NB Plans to introduce charges for green bin emptying were squashed at the last full council meeting
Dealing with York’s waste mountain
Cllr Ann Reid recently visited Yorwaste sites to see where your household rubbish and recycling is sent. She saw the composting facility at Harewood Whin as well as viewing the City from the top of the landfill “mountain”.
Most of the City’s recycling is sent to Hessay for processing and Ann saw how the plastics and cans are separated and the other materials processed to ensure the maximum value is obtained from those materials.
There has been some concern expressed that from time to time recycling is collected by a normal refuse vehicle and the materials mixed up again.
This mixed recycling is sent to Yorwaste’s facility at Seamer near Scarborough and Ann saw how they separate all the materials out for reuse. Residents can be reassured that your carefully separated recycling does not go to landfill.
Did you know that the compost made from your green waste can now be collected free from Harewood Whin EVERY Sunday until 20th Sept (excluding Bank Holidays)?
See the Council’s website at https://www.york.gov.uk/info/20010/waste_and_recycling/591/free_compost_for_residents for more details.
2,762 sign “save our bins” petition
Massive opposition to green bin charges and reduced bin emptying frequencies
Council consultation leaflet click to access
Over 2700 residents have signed the petition objecting to green bin emptying charges and a possible reduction in grey bin emptying frequency (to every 3 or 4 weeks).
The signatures were obtained in a “door to door” campaign conducted mainly on the west of the city.
click to enlarge
The petition can now be signed “on line” (click). Internet access to the petition was suspended during the election campaign.
The proposed changes to bin emptying arrangements were first promoted by Labour Councillors at the beginning of the year.
They authorised a – largely bogus – consultation exercise about options but failed to report the results of the opinion survey.
The bins petition will now be presented to the next ordinary Council meeting which is scheduled to take place on 16th July.
Now Labour stop skip visits to many Council estates
The Saturday morning skip visit may be a thing of the past for many York Council tenants.
Officials are understood to have cancelled the skips scheduled to visit the following estates/villages.
They claim that the reason for the cancellation is that there is no “active residents association” in the area.
However, that shouldn’t have prevented officials and Councillors from organising a ballot to find out how tenants wanted their share of the Estate Improvements Budget to be spent.
Many of the areas affected have a high proportion of elderly tenants who are least able to make alternative arrangements (and who, understandably, may not be able to participate in a “residents association”)
The matter was discussed at last nights Tenants Federation meeting.
We understand that all Council candidates are being asked to confirm that they will – if elected – intervene to get the skips restored.
The Liberal Democrats have already announced a widespread estate regeneration programme part of which will include improved waste collection and storage facilities.
The skips are regularly the most popular facility voted for by tenants in the annual ballot on how estate improvement monies should be spent.
There has been speculation that the Council also intend to stop altogether the programme of dropped kerbs/verge crossovers which, until 2011, was gradually reducing the numbers of vehicles parked on estate roads. The programme slowed when Labour took office, but there were hopes that the new Council – to be elected on 7th May – will take urgent action to address escalating parking problems on some streets
The news is the latest of a series of set backs for Council tenants in York. A few weeks ago the Council revealed that it had a surplus of £15 million on its housing account.
Many tenants blame Cllr Tracey Simpson Laing for the deteriorating condition of their neighbourhoods. She has been responsible for housing in York for the last 4 years.
Problems with dumping have gradually increased in west York since the Beckfield Lane recycling centre was closed in 2012.
Coupled with proposed reductions in grey bin emptying frequencies and charges for emptying green bins, the Council is in danger of creating “perfect storm” conditions for the sub-urban environment
Whatever happened to York’s salvage and re-use centre?
Well we know that it was one of the first cuts that Labour made when they took office in 2011.
The project was to have replaced the Beckfield Lane recycling centre but would have offered much more.
Its priority would have been to encourage the re-use of unwanted items. Currently only informal on-line groups like Freecycle address this need.
Only when the re-use option was exhausted would materials have been salvaged. For example, there is a ready market for building materials such as timber, bricks and hard-core.
Not only was the Beckfield Lane site closed but the replacement – which would Probably have been located at Harewood Whin – was also scrapped.
In part the decision contributed to the decline in recycling rates in the City and an inexorable rise in Landfill Tax costs.
The £2 million salvage centre would have paid for itself by now.
Sadly many residents resort to dumping items. One armchair has found its way onto a verge on Gale Lane today. Although some of these items are picked up by “rag and bone” men, many have to be removed by the Council.
Dumped mattresses are a particular problem for those lacking transport to get to the remaining 2 civic tips.
The York Council now charges £40 to remove up to 10 bulky waste items
Small wonder that so many residents are petitioning their objections to reduced waste collection frequencies and the prospect of a £35/£37 pa charge for emptying green garden waste bins.
“Save our bins” petition hits 1000 signatures
Call for Council to release results of resident’s opinion poll
Labour and Green Councillors voted through a Council budget for this year which includes a big reduction in waste collection costs.
Only two options for cost reduction were offered to residents in a survey undertaken earlier in the year.
- Reduced grey bin emptying frequencies &
- £35/£37 pa charge for emptying (all) green (garden waste) bins.
We said at the time that the survey was deeply flawed.
Now the Council has now said that it won’t reveal the results of its survey until after the Council elections on May 7th.
Labour’s charging plans were leaked last autumn. Not surprisingly neither they or the Green have been candid about the plans in the election manifestos that are currently being circulated
Copies of the petition for can be downloaded from here