Final phase of recycling scheme rolled out across Cardiff
Cardiff Council expands its ‘sack sort’ scheme to 36,000 households in an effort to meet the Welsh Government’s 2025 recycling targets.
Cardiff Council is rolling out the final stage of its ‘sack sort’ recycling scheme, which will extend the scheme to 36,000 homes, as it completes its service change to a kerbside sort system.
Beginning on 20 January, residents not yet enrolled in the scheme will begin receiving new receptacles, with the first collections scheduled to start on 4 March. The new multi-stream system provides residents with the following:
- A blue caddy for glass bottles and jars, collected every fortnight
- A red sack for metals, tins, aerosols, foil, plastic bottles, pots, tubs, and tetra packs, collected weekly
- A blue sack for paper and cardboard, collected weekly
A cover letter, detailed booklet and information sheet will also be handed out, to inform residents on where to put their recycling under the new system.
Residents will be able to request extra sacks to recycle their waste, which will be collected by new waste vehicles that have two separate chambers for the red and blue sacks. A separate vehicle will collect the blue caddy.
Cardiff’s recycling rates
Following the introduction of the ‘sack sort’ scheme in 2022, the scheme has seen 96 per cent of products presented for recycling able to be recycled, compared to 70 per cent under the previous co-mingled green bag scheme.
Additionally, the rate of contamination has dropped from 30 per cent to 4 per cent.
Cllr Norma Mackie, Cabinet Member for Waste, Street Scene & Environmental Services, commented on the results: “Our figures show that the kerbside-sort system is delivering a significant and continuous improvement on the quality of recycling material being collected when compared with the co-mingled (green bag) collection system.
“The quality of the recyclables collected has also improved significantly and will help the city as we strive towards the challenging recycling and composting targets that have been set by Welsh Government.”
Across Wales, the recycling rate increased from 65.7 per cent to 66.6 per cent in 2023/4. As part of the Towards Zero Waste Strategy, the Welsh Government is aiming for the rate to hit 70 per cent by 2025.
However, last year Cardiff had the lowest recycling rate in the country at 60.1 per cent.
Cardiff Council is creating a separate scheme for purpose-built flats, with further information to follow later this year.