Green waste plan back on agenda for rethink

22/01/2008 by admin.

 A £25-a-year green waste collection could be back on the cards after a council decided to take a fresh look at the scheme.Havant Borough Council last year ruled out a fortnightly collection of green waste such as grass cuttings and prunings.
But, after pressure from councillors, it will now look again to see if the scheme could work.
Currently the council sells green waste bags to residents for £1.50 when they are needed and then arranges for full bags to be collected.
Under the new scheme, which would start in April 2009 at the earliest, there would be a regular collection every two weeks for anybody who paid £25 a year.
The idea was thrown out in December. Opponents voiced concerns that the take-up would be small and the scheme would not be suitable for some residents, such as the elderly, who might only want green waste collection a few times a year but would still have to pay the full annual cost.
Now council officers are to research how other councils make the system work. The issue will be discussed again by the environment and community board in M arch.
Councillor Nigel Tarrant, who asked for the scheme to be reconsidered, said he was keen to see the green waste collection set up, as it would benefit the environment.
‘The scheme (the officers] have come up with is probably the best that’s come out of the council for years,’ he said.
‘It would reduce the number of journeys to the tip and it opens the scheme to anybody and everybody. With a regular collection they are more likely to use it.
‘People don’t want to put things like grass cuttings in the back of their car when they could put them out to be collected.’
The scheme could also prove cheaper than the current system, even though it would cost £55,000 to set up, partly because a new refuse lorry would have to be bought.
If enough people signed up to the collection it could bring in up to £34,000 a year to the council, which loses £63,000 a year with the current system. 

The News: 21 January

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