A new door-step green recycling scheme is being launched across Havant.The dedicated green waste collection service will be started by Havant Borough Council next year – but residents will have to pay to take part.The fortnightly service will collect green waste, such as hedge trimmings and grass cuttings, and take them to recycling centres for composting.
The council is spending £82,000 on buying a new collection truck to provide the service.
Under the new scheme, residents will pay an annual licence fee of £25 for one reusable bag or £45 for two bags. A collection truck will come to their door every two weeks.
People who apply early for the scheme will get a discount and will be charged £22. Those on state benefits will receive a 33 per cent discount and pay £18.75.
Council leaders are hoping the scheme, to be introduced next April, will boost local recycling rates.
Around 32 per cent of household waste is recycled in the Havant Borough compared with just five per cent back in 1993. But the council has to improve far more to reach the government target of 40 per cent by 2010.
Council leader Tony Briggs said: ‘We’re up there with the upper quartile of local authorities for recycling rates in the country and this is going to help even more.
‘We’re already meeting government targets, but we want to do even better.’
The scheme will be in addition to the alternate fortnightly collection for refuse and recyclables.
Green waste is currently collected by the council, but under a much smaller and more limited scheme.
Green plastic sacks are sold to residents for £1.50 each, reduced to £1 for people on benefits.
Residents then have to ring up the council offices to get a truck to come and collect the bag, which is not reusable.
The council is hoping that around 10 per cent of households – 4,700 homes – take up the new service.
Cllr Briggs added: ‘It’s also going to reduce people’s carbon footprint. At the moment people drive to the household waste recycling centre to get rid of green waste.
‘But now we will have just one vehicle making that journey.’
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