Bin collections to go fortnightly (From Witney Gazette)

Bin collections to go fortnightly

9:00am Wednesday 13th September 2006

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WEST Oxfordshire residents will soon have their household rubbish collected every fortnight, instead of weekly, as part of a major drive to reduce waste going to landfill.

Councillors have also voted to introduce a kitchen waste collection once a week, which they hope will calm concerns about bins becoming infested with maggots, flies, and rats.

"My reservation is the details of the system, which could be better. This weekly kitchen waste collection could be regarded as a reduction in service. I also don't think we should be charging to collect garden and organic waste."

Leader of the Liberal Democrat group, Stuart Brooks

The move was given the thumbs-up by West Oxfordshire District Council's cabinet last Wednesday, and will affect about 42,000 householders.

The council currently collects recycling and household waste once a week.

Under the new system, household waste will be collected every fortnight, recycling will stay the same, there will be a weekly waste food collection and a chargeable garden waste collection.

WODC's strategic director for environment, Cath James, told the Gazette: "Oxfordshire has got some really difficult landfill directive targets to meet for 2010. That is part of what is driving this momentum to re-look at how we deliver waste and recycling services. We have an excellent recycling rate of 25 per cent, and we are hoping to get that to 40 per cent with this scheme in the future, which is a tremendous boost."

She said in other counties, when people separated their kitchen rubbish from household waste, they often realised how wasteful they were, and changed their habits - therefore throwing less away in the first place.

The new collection system could be introduced by 2008, she added.

Leader of the Liberal Democrat group, Stuart Brooks, welcomed the plan 'in principle', but said the way it was implemented needed to be tweaked.

He said: "My reservation is the details of the system, which could be better. This weekly kitchen waste collection could be regarded as a reduction in service.

"I also don't think we should be charging to collect garden and organic waste."

The new system ties in with a county-wide approach to reducing waste.

Oxfordshire's five district councils have begun signing up to a joint waste strategy to include fortnightly collections.

But they are calling on Oxfordshire County Council to build a multi-million pound food treatment centre, so kitchen waste can be collected and recycled every week.

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