Weekly refuse collections

10.02.00am BST (GMT +0100) Mon 1st Oct 2007

From February the first 20,000 properties will receive weekly rubbish collections and an improved fortnightly recycling collection.

Maidstone councillors have agreed funding to keep weekly rubbish collections for kitchen waste, disposable nappies and other things that cannot be recycled and introduce an improved fortnightly recycling collection for plastics, paper, card and cans.

Another 20,000 homes will get the extra collection in October and the rest in February the following year.

Cabinet Member, Tony Harwood, said: "This scheme will give residents the recycling services that they demand and maintain the weekly refuse collection that they have told me that they want. It also makes sense environmentally and economically. I am not looking to recycle purely for the sake of recycling and I have considered in detail the environmental merits of the new recycling scheme. I will be placing equal emphasis on waste minimisation and re-use so that our service will have a reduced impact in terms of harmful climate change."

Most households will be getting a new 180 litre grey bin for their weekly rubbish collection. Residents will be asked to use their existing green bins for their fortnightly recycling collections. Large families will be offered a larger bin and special arrangements will be made for people who don't have wheelie bins or space for a second bin.

Although all 63,000 Maidstone homes will be getting a new fortnightly recycling collection some 14,000 will lose the kerbside glass collection. Cllr Harwood explains that this service does not make sense environmentally or economically. "Glass collected from the kerbside is crushed and used as aggregate in roads construction. If residents take it to a bottle bank where it is sorted by colour it is recycled into glass bottles and jars. Whereas, ever since the opening of the Allington waste to energy plant, if they put it into the normal refuse it is saved, crushed and used as aggregate in roads construction. So it really doesn't make sense to pay for an extra vehicle to collect it for no extra environmental benefit."

Council Leader, Fran Wilson, is urging everyone to use the new services: "We have listened to the residents and we will be keeping a weekly collection for rubbish and kitchen waste. Residents should not feel forced into using the recycling collection but I am asking everyone to enthusiastically back the service they said they wanted and really start recycling and do their bit for the environment. There are those who say high recycling rates only come through moving to alternate weekly collections. I hope Maidstone Borough residents will help me prove those pundits wrong."