Later in the year (date to be confirmed) Harrogate Borough Council will be launching a trial scheme to replace black recycling boxes with wheelie bins.
Councillor Andy Paraskos, Harrogate Borough Council’s cabinet member for environment, waste reduction and recycling, said:
For some time we’ve been looking at how we could improve our kerbside scheme as we know residents are increasingly conscious of the environment and have been recycling more, which is fantastic.
But before we roll out wheelie bins across the Harrogate district, we have decided to first carry out a trial with a number of properties first to ensure that what we achieve with the current system is replicated.
Recycling rates have increased significantly across the Harrogate district year-on-year and the currently contamination rates (items presented that can’t be recycled) are less than one per cent.
Using wheelie bins for recycling can in some instances lead to higher contamination rates, so the borough council will be trialling wheelie bins in certain areas (to be confirmed) with different types of properties, areas of high recycling rates, etc. and will use the data to influence an approach later in the year.
Councillor Paraskos added:
Our recycling is clean, high-quality and easily accepted at the processing sites so we’d like to say a massive thank you to the residents for always going above and beyond to help us and our crews.
We need to ensure switching to wheelie bins doesn’t change this, as the better our recycling the easier it is sort and process.
In other collection areas, some residents aren’t as conscientious about what they put in the wheelie bin. Resulting in higher contamination rates and much of the recycling having to be disposed of either through incineration or landfill. At the moment residents can be confident that everything they put out in their box and bag is sent for processing and their efforts are helping achieve our recycling goals.
Wheelie bins will replace black recycling boxes and they will continue to use blue bags for paper and card, albeit these will be replaced with heavy-duty bags for those properties that don’t have them.
The council will need to adapt their fleet of recycling wagons. Currently only two out of the 10 wagons can accommodate wheelie bins. Adapting them to lift wheelie bins will also take some time to achieve.
Further news about the trial scheme and areas that will be taking part will be available in the coming months.
About time but it’s the paper that’s the main issue. Silly little blue bags, totally useless.
If they use wheel bins for recycling instead of black boxes and blue bags for paper and carbord it wouldn’t be blowing all over the street’s when it’s raining and windy.