Posted on: Wednesday 17 January 2024
Recycling roadmap
Cabinet members have approved a plan to improve the waste and recycling service and increase recycling.
The Recycling Improvement Plan builds on recent service improvements such as weekly card collections and the Raise the Rate Public Information campaign, launched in April 2023.
It also includes plans for working with housing associations to increase recycling facilities in flats and a public engagement campaign to increase food waste recycling in the borough.
The service is also preparing for the introduction of new trade waste regulations from April 6, 2024, which will mean all businesses including schools will need to recycle in a similar way to households.
During the meeting today, cabinet members were told the service was focusing on five key areas of improvement: service quality; the recycling offer; a resilient and sustainable infrastructure; business recycling and education, communication and behaviour change.
Councillor Mandy Owen, Executive member for the Environment, said: “Over the past two years, the recycling and waste team has implemented new services, such as weekly cardboard collection, the installation of a stretchy plastic recycling point in the Civic Centre, and the acquisition of new recycling vehicles.
“The Welsh Government has told local authorities that 70 per cent of all rubbish must be recycled by 2025 or face potential fines. There is also a clear environmental benefit to recycling more and producing less. Recycling is good for the environment, good for the taxpayer and good for future generations.”
The Leader of Torfaen, Cllr Anthony Hunt, said: “Torfaen intends to Raise the Rate through working with and for our residents. We listened to our residents and halted plans for 3 or 4 weekly refuse collections and instead explored we can increase recycling rates an inclusive and ambitious manner. This brings risk, but we believe through improving the recycling offer, improving the reliability of the service and driving up participation rates, particularly in our food collection service, we can all do a little bit more to help ‘Raise the Rate’.
According to the report, Torfaen’s recycling rate for 2022-2023 was 58.7 per cent.
Recent analysis of purple-lidded bin waste in Torfaen showed that an estimated 62 per cent of the waste could have been recycled at the kerbside with food waste making up 31%.
To view the roadmap and access the full documents, please follow this link.
Find out how to recycle in Torfaen