"People should know the reasons for recycling change" says councillor

The councillor responsible for recycling in Monmouthshire said the council's decision to change recycling "was not taken lightly".

Eric Saxon, Cabinet Member for regulatory services and county operations, said that the change to a co-mingled sack service is the best option for the county.

He said:

"In June Monmouthshire County Council (MCC) decided to replace the kerbside dry recycling box scheme with a single ‘co-mingled' sack system.

"Since then a campaign has been run by Friends of the Earth and Monmouthshire Community Recycling (MCR) Ltd. to get the decision overturned.  The campaign has included petitions, articles and letters in the press, and correspondence directly with councillors.

"The Cabinet decision to change was not taken lightly and came at the end of a major review that started in 2007 into how we should manage waste and recycling in the future.

"The campaign highlighted how seriously people take the subject and we want people to clear about why we took the decision.

"The Welsh Assembly has set targets for local authority recycling up to 2025 by which time we should be recycling 70% of waste, and every year the recycling performance of each authority in Wales is compared.

"We await Welsh Assembly figures for 08/09 but in previous years Monmouthshire has overall been one of the best in Wales - we anticipate remaining in the top quarter.

"However municipal recycling is made up largely of two elements; dry recycling - paper, glass, cans -  and ‘green'  - garden and food waste.

"For green recycling MCC is the best performer in Wales but for dry recycling MCC has been amongst the worst performers in Wales and overall we have seen no sign of improvement in this area.

"The kerbside box service provided by MCR on behalf of MCC is the major part of our dry recycling service so because performance in this area is so poor we must improve it.

"We have looked at alternatives and recognised that the majority of councils in Wales (including the best performing authority) now provide a household dry recycling service using a co-mingled system.  Basically this means that all materials that can be recycled are placed in a bag or bin, loaded into a collection freighter and then taken to a Materials Recycling Facility (MRF) for sorting and processing.

"We recognise that some residents are committed and passionate about recycling, others may be willing to recycle but the system must be convenient and easy to use.

"The message we have received from our local trial of co-mingled sacks is that residents find it simple and easy to use and other authorities that have changes to a co-mingled service have consistently seen an improvement in their dry recycling performance.

"The change to a co-mingled sack service seems the best option. In the future, when we review our MRF facilities we will also look at providing households with more than one sack to provide greater separation of materials.

"A great deal has been published in the press about the cost of the service, and in particular MCR Ltd. has suggested that they would carry out the kerbside box service for around £100 per tonne whereas the cost of a co-mingled service is reported as a maximum of £148 per tonne.

"In normal circumstances commercial confidentiality would suggest that it is inappropriate to attribute specific contract costs to an individual contractor.  However as MCR has made the claim it is important to place the claim in context.

"We believe the figure they use is taken from a tender exercise in 2007 when a range of costs were quoted by bidders.  The range went from approximately £100 to over £200 per tonne dependent upon how the collection services were structured.

"MCC decided not to proceed with any of the bids at the time so perhaps the most relevant figure to be quoting is that MCC pays just over £160 per tonne to MCR Ltd. for the dry recycling service.

"We recognised that the decision has a major impact upon our current contractor, although many of their staff will be employed by the council after the changeover.  Perhaps it is understandable that its directors would wish to see MCR continuing to provide the kerbside box service, and have campaigned to that effect, albeit this is extremely unusual behaviour for a private limited company.

"We also recognise that Friends of the Earth prefer the box system to the co-mingled system.

"However, we want to be one of the best recycling authorities in Wales so we have to improve our dry recycling service.  Evidence shows that the co-mingled system is the best way to achieve this and we are hopeful that residents will support the scheme when it is introduced early in the New Year."