Flintshire County Council is to impose fixed-penalty notices (FPNs) to all households presenting side waste in an effort to drive up recycling rates, as it faces government penalties of up to £400,000 for missing targets.

A report on the county’s waste collection and amenities presented to the council’s cabinet last week (19 April) said that the fines would level the playing field and stop those not participating in the recycling service from negating the work of the ‘majority’ of residents who have embraced it.

It states: ‘Most residents now recycle most, if not all of their recyclable waste. There remains, however, a minority of residents who do not participate fully with the system and some cases do not recycle their waste at all. This is unfair on the residents that do support the service and there has to be a way of ensuring that everyone contributes to our efforts to achieve the targets and avoid the fines that will result if we fail.’

The Welsh Government has set local authority (LA) penalties of £200 for every tonne that councils miss their targets for recycling and landfill by. This means that Flintshire would be liable to pay a fine of £200,000 for missing its landfill allowance by 1,000 tonnes in a year, the equivalent of just one per cent of the council’s current municipal waste arising. A further £200,000 penalty could be given for missing the statutory recycling target of 58 per cent for 2015/16.

Side waste ban

From June 2017, no side waste - waste presented alongside a full 180-litre bin - will be collected by collection crews, with the extra bags being placed in emptied bins and a sticker informing the resident of the situation being applied to the container. From September, any side waste presented will be subjected to an FPN in the first instance.

If the resident chooses not to pay the FPN, the council will take action against the resident under the powers within the Environmental Protection Act 1990.

To facilitate the removal of side waste, the council says it will need to identify which property each residual waste container has been allocated to. This will be achieved by applying a bar code sticker or electronic tag to each container, which will identify the address to which the bin has been allocated. This work will be undertaken by the service over the next 12 months to facilitate the above changes in 2017.

At present, the council says that households presenting side waste are called upon by officers to ensure they are aware of the collection arrangements and the need to recycle. The waste is still collected, however, to reduce littering.

Three-weekly considered ‘if worst comes to the worst’

The council expects the new arrangements for side waste collection to improve participation levels in the kerbside-sort recycling service and improve its recycling rate, but says that a move to a three-weekly residual waste collection would have to be considered if this alone doesn’t see Flintshire reach the Welsh Government’s recycling target.

The council’s Leader, Councillor Aaron Shotton, told the cabinet that he did not want to see the county follow in the footsteps of several other Welsh LAs (including Gwynedd, Powys, Blaenau Gwent, Conwy and Anglesey) by moving to a three-weekly collection, but that it could become a possibility in the future.

Cllr Shotton said: “It’s clear other local authorities are trying to meet Welsh Government’s stringent but honourable targets and have approached in the manner of introducing four-week collections and three-week collections. [To date, no local authority in Wales has plans to introduce a four-weekly collection; although it was recommended by Conwy’s Customers Overview and Scrutiny Committee, the cabinet deemed it ‘a bridge too far’.]

“I don’t want to see that in our local authority. The purpose of this report was to see how to avoid doing that. Let’s hope we can find a way forward.”

Councillor Chris Bithell, the council’s Cabinet Member for Education, added: “We may have to consider three-week collections if the worst comes to the worst. It’s not come to that yet and we want to educate people.

Cllr Bithell also defended the plans to introduce on-the-spot fines for those presenting side waste, saying: “Most people are going along with us, but a small minority of people are not playing ball. We’re not using a sledgehammer to crack a nut.”

HWRCs

The report to cabinet also explained plans to reduce the number of household waste recycling centres (HWRCs) in the county. The council has already planned to close up to four of its eight sites, with the Welsh Government helping with its strategic deliberations.

Steve Jones, Flintshire Council’s Chief Officer for Streetscene, states in the report that the facilities offered at each of the council’s current sites ‘do not match the minimum requirements for the high-quality sites that achieve high levels of recycling in other parts of Wales’.

Approximately 30 per cent of the total domestic waste currently produced in Flintshire is deposited at the HWRC sites, and the average recycling rate achieved at the sites is just approximately 70 per cent. The report states that this is due to the limited facilities and space at the sites to offer the full range of recycling containers for residents to recycle their waste.

The Welsh Government is currently carrying out a study of the council’s waste service, which will provide recommendations as to the ideal number and locations of sites, with a consultation process to be carried out before closures are carried out in November 2016.

The report to Flintshire County Council’s cabinet can be read at the council’s website.