Harrogate Borough Council is to trial a scheme to replace black recycling boxes with wheelie bins this month.
The Appleby estate in Knaresborough has been chosen as the first area to trial the wheelie bins due to the amount and quality of the recycling presented by residents.
Recent articles by the Stray Ferret have highlighted concerns by residents about the amount of recycling left out for collection blown across streets.
They prompted many people to call on the council to introduce wheelie bins with lids.
The new blue-lidded wheelie bin will replace the black box and will be used for glass bottles and jars, tin cans and foil, food and drink cartons, plastic bottles and tubs.
Blue bags for recycling all paper, card and cardboard will continue to be used. However, these will be replaced with heavy-duty bags for properties that don’t have them.
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Residents in this area will receive a letter this week explaining what they need to do. Collection days will remain the same.
The council will collect black boxes when they deliver the wheelie bins. These will either be reused for other residents or recycled, depending on their condition.
Concerns over contamination rates
Councillor Andy Paraskos, the council’s cabinet member for environment, waste reduction and recycling, said:
“For some time we’ve been looking at how we could improve our kerbside scheme as we know residents are increasingly conscious of the environment and have been recycling more, which is fantastic.
“But before we roll out wheelie bins across the Harrogate district, we have decided to first carry out a trial with a number of properties to ensure that what we achieve with the current system is replicated.”
In some instances, using wheelie bins for recycling can lead to higher contamination rates, so the council will use data from the trial to decide what to do across the Harrogate district.
Cllr Paraskos added:
“Our recycling is clean, high-quality and easily accepted at the processing sites so we’d like to say a massive thank you to the residents for always going above and beyond to help us and our crews.
“We need to ensure switching to wheelie bins doesn’t change this, as the better our recycling the easier it is sort and process.
“In some collection areas, not all residents are as conscientious about what they put in the wheelie bin. Resulting in higher contamination rates and much of the recycling having to be disposed of either through incineration or landfill.”
Other areas will join the trial in the coming month.
