RECYCLING AND REFUSE
Change on the doorstep
In 2013/14 we saved more than £4million by recycling waste instead of sending it
to landfill. This is a huge amount, but we can save more by recycling more.
T
he council has a target of recycling 50% of
household waste by 2018. Currently the
borough’s recycling rate stands at around
45% thanks to your hard efforts and the
council’s introduction of more, and ever easier, ways
to recycle, including ‘on the go’ bins in parks and new
services for flats.
For every tonne of waste that gets
sent to landfill as rubbish, rather
than recycled, councils are
charged a special tax – and
this tax increases every
year. That means it is
absolutely essential
that we only
throw away
what cannot be
recycled, because
we can no longer
afford to allow
households to
throw bags of
waste away each
week and not recycle.
Ultimately, it
means the council
has money to spend
on local services rather
than throwing it away with
the rubbish. For every bit of
waste we recycle instead of
dumping it in the rubbish, we
are saving ourselves money as
well as helping to protect the
environment.
In west London, two-thirds of
the waste that is taken to landfill
22
around ealing
Summer 2015
could have been recycled or reused. Of this, 23% is plastic,
paper and card that can go in the new bins; 33% is food that
should go in the food waste bins. So, there is plenty of room
for improvement.
TIME FOR CHANGE?
However, changes are proposed which could help
us take our recycling percentage closer to that
50% target. A new system, which has raised
recycling rates in other boroughs, could be
introduced to Ealing.
It could see new bins and your
collections alternating weekly – rubbish
one week, recycling the next. The
exception to this would be your food
waste, which would still be taken
away each week from your current
food waste bin, like now. The
idea is to be considered by the
council’s cabinet in June.
OTHER BENEFITS
If brought in, the new service
would reduce operating costs. It
is one of the many measures
the council has had to
consider or implement
to tackle the enormous
budget savings required by
2019 owing to a dramatic
reduction in annual funding
from the government. You can
read more about that massive
savings target at www.ealing.
gov.uk/budget and in previous
editions of Around Ealing.
Another benefit could be