Boost given to city recycling schemes

A POPULAR recycling scheme is being expanded to include another 18,000 homes in Swansea.

Swansea Council has confirmed that from January 12 (Monday) it will begin delivering special kitchen and green waste recycling equipment to thousands of homes to enable them to recycle food or garden related waste and help reduce the amount of biodegradable waste currently being sent to landfill sites.

The Kitchen and Garden Waste Collection Service is already available to approximately 35,000 homes in Swansea and, by the end of May, the Council intends to extend the scheme even further to include almost everyone living in the city.

Waste collected in this way will then be converted into soil improver and provided free to residents at local civic amenity sites.

Keen Swansea gardeners helped themselves to over 11,000 tonnes last year.

Swansea resident Tim Buckler shares a house in Sketty and says they all try and do their bit for the environment.

He said: "We try to recycle as much as we can at home.

"We have a row of bins in the kitchen with one for each individual recyclable material and we've already created a space for the kitchen waste bin.

"There seems to be a perception that recycling is confusing or difficult and it isn't.

"It's just a case of people slightly changing their habits."

The kitchen waste collections will also occur weekly instead of fortnightl and will help residents to dispose of their leftover food more frequently. The garden waste collection will remain on a fortnightly basis.

Flyers will also be sent out next week to those who already have access to the service to explain the changes that are being introduced.

John Hague, Cabinet Member for the Environment in Swansea Council, said, "All local authorities are struggling with diminishing landfill space so we have to develop better ways of disposing biodegradable waste.

"And more importantly, this type of waste when sent to landfill is the principal cause of methane- the most powerful of the greenhouse gases that contributes unnecessarily to global warming and climate change.

"Residents now have a wide range of kerbside recycling services available at their disposal. These will all assist in helping us to reduce the amount of waste we send to landfill and will also benefit our environment."

Some residents will not receive the weekly kitchen waste service because of their remote location. And for those residents, free home composters will be provided to enable food and green waste to be turned into compost at home.

Did you know?

• 6.7 million tonnes of food waste is thrown away every year in the UK.

• Approximately 4.1 million tonnes thrown away is unopened or untouched and, of this, 340,000 tonnes of food is still within its sell by date.

• The average household throws away between £15,000 and £24,000 worth of food in a lifetime.

• Food waste is increasing at a rate of 15 per cent every ten years.

Visit www.swansea.gov.uk for more information on recycling at home.

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This page last updated on January 9 2009