Council gears up to increase recycling rates

THE COUNCIL is preparing to increase recycling rates with opportunities to find out more gearing up before November’s new waste collections.

Pembrokeshire County Council’s waste advisors have 62 events over the coming weeks from councillor-arranged drop-ins, visits to WI or Soroptimist groups to vital support groups such as Value Independence and Pembrokeshire People First.

There have also been visits to supermarkets and other local events since the County Show launch.

Waste advisor Lauren Blacklaw-Jones, one of the six-strong team, said the events were proving to be successful with people left feeling “positive”.

“Some events had two to three hundred people attending.

“The locality informs the information people want to know about, for example people asking about second homes, and we have a service change and also a new service.

“We often find people are a little bit reluctant about change in the first place and they hear all the information and they say ‘thank you, you’ve put my mind at ease’ or ‘we don’t know what all the fuss is about’.”

Full details of the new recycling collections, including what can go in each container – bag or boxes – to be collected every week and households will also be sent the details in plenty of time for November 4.

Cabinet member for the environment Cllr Cris Tomos reassured those without digital access that they would be supported and information would be made available to them as well.

He added that it was also a chance for families to have a conversation about increasing recycling and ‘doing their bit’ for the environment, by also helping older members.

“There’s only a finite amount of a material we can extract from the earth, by recycling our waste we can make sure it has a second or third use.

“If everybody does their own little effort, it will have a major impact on recycling levels and the resources won’t go to landfill,” said Cllr Tomos.

The new boxes and bags are starting to be delivered to some 61,000 domestic properties this month and October with the aim of enabling residents to recycle many more items at home than is currently possible.

This will help Pembrokeshire meet increasing recycling targets – and subsequent fines for not hitting them – enforced by Welsh Government.

“We hope that 90 to 95 per cent can manage or adapt easily. There will be those few percent and we will work with them, it will take 18 months or so to bed in.

“We’re confident that the majority of people will embrace it and where their are individuals who don’t understand we will explain how it all works,” he said.

The new fleet includes technology to allow the staff to know if someone has a special request listed for assistance meaning collection from the back door when required but with weekly pick-up it doesn’t matter if only a few tins or papers are put out, he added.

What the new system will do is avoid contamination, with the red bag for metal and plastic, including Tetra Pak, blue bag for cardboard, a blue box for paper and green boxes for glass and food waste.

Residual waste will be collected every three weeks in a maximum of three grey bags, with households – apart from larger families who can request more or Christmas requests – issued with 52 a year.