Provisional data shows that the Isle of Anglesey boosted its recycling rate to 66% in 2016-17, 10% up on the previous year, which the island’s county council attributes to the introduction of three week residual waste collection cycles and expanding residents’ opportunities to recycle.
This comfortably beat Anglesey’s 2016-17 target recycling rate of 58%. The best-performing Welsh council was Ceredigion (70%), while Blaenau Gwent was lowest at 57%.
Anglesey’s tri-weekly residual waste service, based on 240 litre black wheeled bins, was rolled out by the council in partnership with its municipal contractor Biffa in October 2016, after 34,500 properties on Anglesey had received new recycling containers to improve the service.
All relevant properties on the island now have a new stackable trolley box system which has proved a major success compared to the old recycling system. At the same time as the roll-out, an AHP (nappy) collection service was introduced, and around 1,200 properties are currently registered for that service.
The weekly recycling collection service centres on a recycling trolley that can stack three coloured recycling boxes: a 40 litre box for mixed paper and magazines, plus textiles in a plastic bag; a 55 litre blue box for mixed plastic bottles, pots, tubs, trays, mixed cans and clean foil; and a 55 litre box for glass containers and cardboard.
“Extending residual waste collection frequency to every three weeks has improved efficiencies,” he said, “as well as helped focus residents’ minds on minimising household waste.”
There is also a separate pouch for waste household batteries, and householders can place excess segregated dry recyclables in clear plastic bags alongside their trollies.
Food waste is also collected weekly, from 23 litre brown food waste bins, while a fortnightly service empties 240 litre green wheeled bins containing garden waste. These organics are used to produce a rich soil enhancer.
Meirion Edwards, the county council’s chief waste management officer, stated that the strategy for “a cleaner and greener Anglesey” focused on increasing recycling rates to stay ahead of Welsh government targets, and improving efficiencies.
“Extending residual waste collection frequency to every three weeks has improved efficiencies,” he said, “as well as helped focus residents’ minds on minimising household waste.
“At the same time, we gave residents the means to easily recycle a wider range of materials by introducing mixed plastics collection, and made storing recyclables easier with the introduction of the trolley box. Taken together, they’ve worked very well to achieve our objectives.”
Comparing the January-March 2017 quarter with the same period in 2016, Anglesey’s residual household waste per person fell by over 15%.
The Welsh reuse, recycling and composting rate is reported to have increased by 59% over the past two decades, rising from under 5% in 1996-97 to 64% for 2016-17, making it the best in the UK and third best in the world.
