Cash strapped Shropshire Council has agreed to start charging for collecting garden and food waste in the green bin. It estimates this will bring in £4 million a year. The cost for the opt-in service is expected to be £52 a year, £1 a week. Many people will think the service worth that much. Others will not want to pay because they think it is not worth the cost, because they only generate a small amount of green and food waste or because they feel they have already paid for the service through their council tax.
What is clear is that this move will reduce the amount of green and food waste collected. Some of green waste will be home composted. Perhaps rather more will go in the black bin to be incinerated. Some will be fly tipped.
This move will damage recycling rates and add to Shropshire Council’s growing reputation that like the current government, it is putting climate change objectives on the back burner.
In North Shropshire, Shrewsbury, and South Shropshire food waste is collected in the green bin along with garden waste. This is processed in an in-vessel composting process to capture the methane and ensure that the food waste is fully composted. Only green waste is collected in Oswestry and Bridgnorth and that is composted in open bins.
Shropshire Council has not said what it will do with the green bins that will go out of use. It is unlikely to collect them. It will be difficult to take them to a household recycling centre if two are to be closed.
I despair of Shropshire Council’s policy on waste and recycling. We were doing so well and now we about to step back decades. Charging for green bin collection is perhaps essential but the council leadership has no idea where it is going on waste and recycling. We are a green county. We want better. We deserve better.
It’s a retrograde move, of course, but I suppose neighbours could manage it by chipping in together and sharing a bin.
We need to get rid of the incompetent clique who have dominated Shropshire local government for far too long.
Part of the remedy, locally and nationally, is for opposition parties to put up candidates who are likely to attract a majority vote. In other words, no more party leaders like Corbyn. On the back benches, if elected, but not in charge of a supposedly centre-left party.
If Craven Arms is closed it is an incomprehensible decision.
Bin collections could be reduced with a little bit of thought. Green bins less frequently in Winter for example.
We compost most green waste at home. We would not be paying £1 a week for the small proportion we use the bin for, like chicken carcasses. They would go in the black bin as you suggest. I’m not sure how this would work because the bin rounds would become less economical to operate.
Agree! Short-sightedness that we’ve come to expect from this government and Shropshire Council.
Sharing bins with neighbours might help, but it’s the wrong solution.
Shropshire must be one of the last counties to charge for green waste, £1/week is reasonable; I moved up from Surrey and, 4 years ago they were charging £86/year. I always ensured the bin was full !
Would it help the funds if University Centre Shrewsbury was not sold off but RENTED by the council to the school.That would give a regular income?
What are the practicalities? How do the binmen know who has paid and who has not? Will it be like skips, where other people put stuff in surreptitiously? I just can’t see how the bureaucracy and effort involved will save much money.
In Harrow, we have labels that go on the bin to show that you have signed up for the collection.
It may bring in £4million per year, but the comment does not say how much it will save. Or how much the closures of the recycling centres will cost and save. By this I mean increased costs for fly tipping for example, which I suspect may also rise with charging for green bin collections.
I was paying for a green bin 15 years ago in Leicestershire.
I don’t generate that much gardening/food waste and perhaps put my green bin out once every couple of months. Another ill thought through scheme.
Where will this alledged 4 million be spent ?, certainly not in South Shropshire
Most gardeners will compost at home. This the one area I do not mind paying for a green bin collection however the process will put more pressure on the already inadequate black bin collection. Yes people will throw more garden waste into black bins. Mismanagement of finances both past and present have put Shropshire Council into this position. Perhaps the people of Shropshire will start voting for change
There’s nothing inadequate about the black bin or any other refuse collection service polite, hard-working and pretty reliable chaps – in Ludlow anyway. But we all know the green bin tax will just be wasted (NWRR etc). In any case it looks like another revenue idea that will probably cost more to administer that what it would raise.
Another con by Shropshire Council £52 a year – £1 a week but they only come once a fortnight so every other week they make a £1 out of me !
Dudley council are charging £36.00 per year , how come ours is more expensive . Do we get a refund for the week that its not collected , as only every other week is enough for most households .