As local authorities are required to both cut costs and increase recycling, they are increasingly looking to limit the amount of waste householders can throw away, either by limiting bin sizes or reducing collection frequency. In Swansea’s case, the council opted for a ‘Keep it to 3’ scheme, starting in April 2014, restricting the number of black bags households can put out for collection to three per fortnight. Chris Howell, Head of Waste at Swansea City & County Council, explains the thinking behind the initiative’s approach: “We did a survey to find out how many bags people were generally putting out, and we found that three was the right balance between having a significant impact, but also doing something that the vast majority of recyclers could manage. We were aware that another authority, Monmouthshire in South Wales, had a two-bag limit. However, we felt that as a first step, that was a bit harsh.” Prior to the scheme, Howell says, the number of bags that people tended to put out varied wildly, with some managing just two, but others putting out as many as 20 per fortnight. Consequently, the change was preceded by an “extensive communication campaign” involving newspaper articles, leaflets and information on the council’s website. And, generally, the residents responded positively: “I think there was understandably a mix of responses”, he says. “Broadly, it had the support of most residents, I would say. And in fact, a lot of residents who were strong recyclers would ask us: ‘Why can’t you make my neighbour who isn’t recycling recycle?’ But... there were also people who disagreed with it, thought it was just a local authority cracking the whip on residents unnecessarily.” The council has thus far had a “soft touch on enforcement”, Howell tells me, noting that it has focused on education and engagement, but reserves the right to impose fines in future if certain properties consistently exceed the limit. When more than three bags are left outside a property, the collection crews will take just three bags and “put stickers on the extra bags, which ask residents to either put the bags back out in a fortnight, or to take them to a household waste recycling centre”. Areas where many stickers have had to be left are then targeted with “intensive doorknocking” and offered recycling advice with a focus on food waste recycling. Howell says people respond well to the approach, although “sometimes it drifts back, and sometimes it doesn’t”.

For those who really can’t fit their fortnightly waste into just three bags, the council offers exemptions, which only 1,000 of the council’s 110,000 properties have requested. Rather than citing small properties and high occupancy, though, the majority of requests have been justified because of nappies, coal ash and, surprisingly, pet bedding.

Regardless of the exemptions, the initiative seems to be paying off, with residual waste falling by 25 per cent in the scheme’s first 12 months. Recycling is also on the rise, with the council surpassing the Welsh statutory target of 52 per cent recycling and composting, and hitting 56.7 per cent in 2014/15. “Over the last three years, Swansea has gone from being in the bottom three in Wales... up to ninth in Wales last year”, Howell says. “That’s not all down to the three-bag limit. That’s down to the three-bag limit, down to the doorknocking to encourage recycling and also a few other initiatives. But the three-bag limit certainly had an impact on residual tonnage, and a lot of the loss in residual waste tonnage then manifests itself in recycling tonnage.”

Asked whether waste could be limited further in future (à la the two-bag limit currently in place in Monmouthshire), Howell concludes: “I think that in the current financial climate and with increasing statutory targets, all local authorities are looking at further restrictions either of size, or even collection frequency. Undoubtedly it’ll be something that we will be forced to consider in future.”