In Ards and North Down, there has been a 131% rise in recycling of food since January 2016.
The Council has issued a big ‘Thank You’ to residents across the borough for their phenomenal response to changes in the food waste recycling service. With close to a third of all waste collected in household ‘wheelie bins’ comprising of fully recyclable food waste, the Council has recently been promoting the fact that placing it in the green and brown bins and not the grey bins, will save money and save the environment.
The new recycling strategy adopted for the Ards and North Down Borough has set an ambitious but, the Council believes, achievable target, of recycling at least 65% of all our waste by 2020. The associated financial saving is up to £1.5 million per year. And the Mayor, Alderman Alan Graham has declared, “If the early success of our new food waste recycling service is anything to go by, we are well on our way to achieving our goal and setting the recycling standard not only here in Northern Ireland, but across the UK.”
The roll out of arrangements to allow householders to divert all of their food waste away from the grey landfill bins and into the green and brown composting bins is now well underway. Most homes in the northern part of the borough are already geared up to do this and arrangements in the Ards part of the borough are well in progress. The early results for the new service have shown a huge 131% rise in recycling of food and other compostable wastes, with an associated massive drop in the amount of this type of material being discarded in grey bins.
If this early drop in the tonnage of grey bin waste is replicated across the entire borough as the scheme is fully rolled out, the result will be a fall in landfilled grey bin waste of close to 10,000 tonnes every year. Councillor Joe Boyle, the Chairman of the Council’s Environment Committee has declared his faith in the ratepayers’ support for the scheme, “As Councillors, when we adopted this new recycling strategy, we did so with faith in the willingness of our householders to embrace it for the good of not only the environment, but also the borough’s finances. The 10,000 tonnes of food waste that we are now well on the way to recycling rather than landfilling every year, will help us avoid around £0.8 million in landfill tax annually and in terms of reducing harmful landfill gas emissions, it’s the equivalent of taking over 4000 cars off the roads of the borough.”
The Council’s mantra when it comes to promoting recycling engagement by its residents is ‘keep it simple, make it easy’. If you have a query about recycling food and other compostable wastes contact the Council’s recycling officers on 0300 013 3333 (select option 3 ‘recycling’) or email:
recycling@ardsandnorthdown.gov.uk
