Government

Hackney Council to change recycling service

By Jenny Dye | 28 December 2012 | Add a Comment

Hackney Council has announced that it will be making changes to its recycling service after being awarded £1.3 million of funding from the Department for Communities and Local Government’s (DCLG) £250 million Weekly Collection Support Scheme (WCSS).  

From 1 March 2013, Hackney will be expanding its food waste recycling service to a further 30,000 properties (on estates) and switching from May Gurney’s weekly source-separated green box collection for dry recyclables to an in-house weekly co-mingled sack collection. May Gurney staff will reportedly be transferred to the council contract as part of the changes.

Hackney estate residents will soon receive free food waste caddies and compostable caddy liners in preparation for the service expansion, whilst all residents will be receiving the new recycling sack.

Both food waste and dry recyclables will also be collected on the same day under the new system.

Hackney Council hopes the changes will speed up collections and ‘make recycling easier’, and believes they will contribute to London’s target of recycling half of all waste by 2020.

Councillor Feryal Demirci, Cabinet Member for Neighbourhoods, announced the changes on Monday, 17 December, saying: "I welcome the decision of the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) to award Hackney Council £1.337m in funding to improve recycling provision in the borough. In the current financial environment it is important that the council finds new funding sources.

"Council officers have worked with DCLG representatives to design a programme of improvements to food waste recycling collections including the provision of free liners to 46,000 households and an expansion of the service to 30,000 properties on estates.”

Hackney Council will receive the DCLG funding in three instalments: £128,000 in 2012/13, £878,000 in 2013/14 and £331,000 in 2014/15.

Other uses of the funding include:

  • Financing a face-to-face publicity campaign to promote and embed the new co-mingled recycling service and recycling changes
  • Providing food waste bin housing units for estates
  • Giving food waste caddies and compostable liners to all estate-based households
  • Financing two collection vehicles, operating requirements and staff to collect food waste from estates.

Read more about DCLG's Weekly Collection Support Scheme.