20/11/07 Full kerbside waste and recycling collection to be rolled out in Fingal
Fingal County Council has confirmed it is extending its brown bin service countywide so that householders can recycle up to two thirds of their household waste through their green and brown bin services. This rollout of the full household recycling service is to be substantially completed in Fingal during 2008. The green bin service will also be expanded.
P.J. Howell, Director of Environment with Fingal County Council, confirmed today that building on the success of the brown bin pilot project,
plans are well advanced to extend the brown bin service to every house in Fingal and to double the frequency of the green bin collection to twice per month, including allowing plastic bottles in the packaging to be accepted in the green bin.
“Rolling out the full recycling service will have implications for how Fingal County Council recovers its costs for operating the household waste management service”, P.J. outlines, “and we undertake to make any changes in our charges as fair and user friendly as possible.”
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From 2008 we must introduce a fixed charge of €110 per year on a phased basis, once a household has been provided with the full range of kerbside recycling services i.e. the green and brown recycle bins and the black bin for non-recyclable waste,” the Director explains. “We must operate a refuse and recycling service that pays for itself and at the moment it is heavily subsidised”, P.J. says.
In 2007 Fingal County Council spent €20.1m collecting and managing household waste, €10.4 million of this on recycling services alone. €11.1m of this cost was contributed by the householder through bin tags. A further €2.1m was recovered from the sale of the dry recyclable material and from Government grants, a figure not as high as is commonly thought. The remaining €6.9m shortfall arising from the cost of the service was subsidised by Fingal County Council. In 2008 costs will increase further for an expanded waste management service. The cost of the green and brown bins together will increase from €7.3m to €11m.
“For this new flat charge, each household will get a sticker for each of their three bins, but will only need to use a bin tag on their black refuse bin when they put this out for collection,” P.J. says. “There won’t be any increase in the charge for a bin tag next year”, he points out, “and people who qualify for waivers will not be affected.”
“We are still giving the maximum control of waste costs to each household”, P.J. says. “Every house will have 2 brown and 2 green bin collections every month, so we expect black bins to be presented only every 3 weeks”, he continues. “This equates to a cost of less than €5 per household per week for the full range of kerbside waste management services”, he explains. “Even if a black bin is put out and tagged every second week, the cost per week for the full service is still only a little over €6”, the Director says. “We are also continuing with our very generous waiver scheme” he adds.
“Two thirds of household waste will be recycled once the full service is rolled out across Fingal,” the Director says. “Fingal residents have always embraced the recycling challenge and last year they recycled 24,000 tonnes or 25% of household waste, a 120% improvement on recycling over a 3 year period and this figure will be even higher in 2007”, he added. “With the roll out of the full recycling service which we committed to in the Waste Management Plan for Dublin, we will achieve best practice in Ireland and Europe”, he adds. “Our householders have a lot to be proud of,” P.J. says, “and I expect that they will adapt to our new system and continue to manage their waste in a responsible and cost effective way”.
Full details of the roll out of the full household recycling service and the introduction of the flat charge will be circulated to every home in the county in the coming months.
For further information please contact:
Florence White, Communications Officer, Fingal County Council
Tel: 01 890 5998 M: 087 4141580 Email:
florence.white@fingalcoco.ie
