Published at 11:10, Thursday, 26 July 2012

ONLY one brown (garden) bin will be collected per property in Copeland, it is being proposed.

To cut down on the time it takes to collect multiple brown bins from homes, the council plans to impose a limit and encourage residents to compost garden waste at home.

When the council first introduced the alternate black/brown wheelie bin collections, it was happy to hand out more than one brown bin to any customer who asked, resulting in households having three or even four such bins. However, it says that the benefits of collecting multiple bins that previously existed are no longer available.

The council says: “When we introduced brown bins, there were statutory recycling targets and government incentives (financial penalties) to divert biodegradable waste from landfill and increase recycling. Now, there are no recycling targets and waste does not go to landfill.

“Households which place more than one brown bin out for collection reduces the number of other brown bins and households that can be serviced that day by the vehicle.

“Also, the best way, in terms of the environment, of dealing with garden waste is home composting and we should encourage this.”

An alternative proposal has been put forward by Ivor Fee, who has a large garden at Summergrove. “Anyone who takes care of their garden can fill their brown bin very easily. Some of it you can compost, but some you can’t.

“I think a two-bin limit would be more appropriate; the lifts on the lorries take two bins at a time so that would make sense.

“But if that isn’t to be, I suggest they encourage people to only put their brown bins out for collection if they’re more than half full; that would reduce collection times. There are a lot of people who put their bins out with not much in them, which still takes the same amount of time for the collectors to deal with. This would be a good suggestion as limiting people to one brown bin will not be popular.”

Published by http://www.whitehavennews.co.uk