A new waste strategy for South Gloucestershire was approved at the Council’s recent Cabinet meeting on Monday 2 March.
The plan outlines the authority’s recycling aspirations with targets of 70 per cent recycling and zero waste being sent to landfill by 2030, along with proposals for new reuse shops and a litter bin review.
The ‘Resource and Waste Strategy: 2020 and Beyond’ moves on from our Waste Strategy 2015-2020 where we made major changes to the waste and recycling services to encourage better recycling, including introducing weekly recycling collections and new, smaller black bins for non-recyclable waste. As a result, the recycling rate has increased every year since 2015 and now stands at 57.8 per cent putting us in the top ten unitary councils nationally.
No further changes are proposed to residential bin collections, the new strategy focuses on developing a circular economy approach in South Gloucestershire by keeping items in use for longer through waste prevention, reuse and recycling. The ultimate aim is to achieve a carbon neutral service with zero waste going to landfill by 2030.
There are also plans to further improve the appearance of our streets and open spaces with more education and enforcement with communities around littering, dog fouling and fly-tipping. There will additionally be infrastructure improvements, including a new Sort It recycling centre in the Filton area and improvements to the Mangotsfield Sort It recycling centre.
South Gloucestershire is already ahead of the national recycling target of 50 per cent of waste by 2020. The latest results from our annual waste analysis shows that the overall quantity of waste in the black bins has reduced since the introduction of weekly recycling collections and smaller black bins, however around 42 per cent of waste put in the black bins could be recycled from home, including 26 per cent of food waste. While the new strategy prioritises actions to improve waste prevention and reuse, it’s important that we continue to improve the recycling rate to keep more materials in use for longer.
Cabinet Member for Communities Cllr Rachael Hunt said: “We are pleased to approve this ambitious new strategy that is part of our overall response to the climate emergency and protecting our environment.
“We would like to thank our residents for not only producing less waste overall, but recycling more of the waste they do generate.
“Working with them in our communities to cut down on single-use items, improving awareness of everyone’s responsibility for their waste and the difference we can all make, is now a bigger part of the new plans.
“We’re also looking in to making our waste and street cleansing operations more efficient, adopting new technology to help manage the services we provide, and opening more reuse shops.”
The West of England Councils (Bath and North East Somerset, Bristol City, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire) have new contracts with Viridor, Suez and ETM in Avonmouth for black bin (residual) to be converted to energy locally. The contracts are due to start in April 2020.
For more information visit www.southglos.gov.uk/wastestrategy
