New Waste Collection
NEW WASTE COLLECTION
The new waste collection arrangements start the week commencing 14th October for the Wenvoe area. You should have received your grey bin containing an additional orange and white bag for recycling. The Vale will be using a new vehicle to collect all the recycling in one journey and a separate vehicle for collecting the black bags and green waste. Following the last collection of the old scheme on Tuesday 8th October, householders will need to separate recyclable items into the new containers ready for our new Friday collection day on 18th October.
The collection team are being trained to place your emptied recycling bags back in the grey bin to prevent them being scattered around the street. In the near future there should be a new bag available for those who have very little recycling ie single homeowners, etc. This will be a four-quadrant bag with internal divisions for the separate sorted recycling material.
White bag (PAPER) – newspapers, magazines, envelopes. NOT wallpaper, wrapping paper, tissues, paper towels, kitchen roll, shredded paper, brown paper; these items should be placed in your black bag.
Orange bag (CARDBOARD) – cardboard boxes, egg boxes, toilet roll tubes, cereal boxes, toothpaste boxes and other similar empty boxes. NOT Tetra Paks these are placed in the blue bag
Blue bag (PLASTICS & CANS) – shampoo/conditioner bottles, milk bottles, drinks cans, drinks bottles, Tetra Paks, food tins e.g. soup tins, empty aerosols, foil, foil cartons, cleaning product bottles. NOT crisp packets, food pouches e.g. for pet food, biscuit packets, carrier bags, , black or , brown plastic, film e.g. cling film or ready meal lids, hard plastics e.g. toys, gas cannisters, lighters, these are placed in your black bag.
Grey caddy (GLASS) – glass jars, glass bottles. NOT ceramics or china, drinking glasses, glass panes, light bulbs, Pyrex, broken glass.
Green bag and food caddie material is unchanged.
Black bags – all non recyclable material. Limit still 2 bags per household.
If you are in doubt about whether an item is recyclable or not, the Vale web site has an A to Z list of items which is regularly updated. For anybody without access to the internet computer facilities are available at the Wenvoe Community Library.
Why did the Vale ban the use of single use bags for recycling material a few months ago and insist only blue bags were acceptable? Usually less than 10% of waste lorry loads were rejected by the company dealing with the commingled waste material due to contamination by inappropriate material. This rose to 34% rejection earlier in the year and 56% in July due to persons including food
waste, nappies, etc hidden within plastic bags, hence the swift action.
Dropping litter is a criminal offence and offenders can be issued with an immediate fine. It is now an offence to dispose of household waste in or around a litter bin and subject to a £300 fine.
What happens to the waste material?
The black bags are now incinerated at a new energy recovery facility near Rover Way which is capable of supplying energy for nearly 40,000 homes. The food waste goes to an anaerobic digester plant where the methane produced is sufficient to supply energy for 4,000 homes. The green waste still goes to the plant at Cowbridge for composting. The Vale will be reopening the depot near Jenner Park to allow householders to collect the composted material for their gardens and allotments. Dry recycling (cans, plastics, paper, card and glass) is sent to UK reprocessing facilities, where available, rather than having to send the material to markets abroad for recycling.
The EU and Welsh Government regulations require all local authorities to meet new recycling targets of 64% by 2919/20 and 70% by 2024/25. The Vale at present time is recycling 67%. Failure to meet targets can involve the local authority being subject to huge fines.
There will be a local road show on the new waste disposal scheme on Thursday 3rd October in the Wenvoe Arms car park between 10.00am and 12 noon. There are other location and times for the show around the Vale if you are unable to attend the Wenvoe show—see Vale web site.