The residents of Surrey who wanted rubbish collections on a weekly basis to go with the fortnightly collections could be smiling all the way to the rubbish bins since the year-long trials in the community have been successful.
The alternate weekly collection scheme of Spelthorne Council has raised the recycling rate to thirty three per cent. Though the goal was to reach a recycling target of forty per cent, the council is confident of achieving that if all the flats in the borough are incorporated into the scheme.
As the summer months approach, Spelthorne Council is considering adding weekly collections of food waste. Councillor John Packman, the leader of Spelthorne Council hinted that they would be splitting the costs with neighbouring councils. He was delighted at the 33 per cent recycling rate they had achieved and was grateful to the residents for their support and cooperation by embracing the alternate weekly collection scheme.
The added costs are resulting from the additional vehicles that will be required in the weekly collections of food waste.
In the neighbouring Guildford, the council has solved the problem by buying multipurpose vehicles which can be used in the collection of food waste as well as the recyclable and household waste all at the same time.
Chris Wheeler, Guildford’s recycling and cleansing manager disclosed that the buying price for their multipurpose trucks would be between thirty thousand pounds to forty thousand pounds more than it would cost to replace the existing vehicles with new vehicles serving the same purpose. But he added that the extra cost was well worth it.
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