Enhanced recycling on the way

In early January the Council’s executive agreed to extend its waste collection, recycling and street cleansing contract with Veolia for seven years from 2010. The contract includes £2.5m of negotiated cost savings. Linked to this are plans – to be finalised next month – for further enhancements in the service including:

· Weekly mixed paper/card and mixed recycling doorstep collection;
· Continuing twice-weekly residual rubbish collection;
· Weekly doorstep food/green waste collection;
· Weekly communal food waste/green waste collections from housing estates and mansion blocks;
· Individual colour glass collections from bring sites;
· More schools recycling

This is in line with Camden’s commitment to becoming a low carbon, low waste borough and to meeting challenging government recycling targets, reducing the waste going to landfill in order to avoid heavy financial sanctions. Residents here already recycle 28 per cent of their waste – Camden is in the top 10 of London boroughs for recycling performance and in the top five for dry recyclables.

Veolia has been performing well: Camden’s street cleansing standard is consistently in the top three for London boroughs, and the refuse collection service has very low missed collection rates. But of course we are not complacent on performance.

Detailed consultation with residents over coming months will be critical in making these new developments work well, in particular in relation to the new food waste collection from doorsteps and housing estates/mansion blocks.

A presentation on this will be the main item at the next Swiss Cottage Area Forum on Tuesday March 10th - 6.30pm for 7pm at the Crossfield Centre, Fairhazel Gardens.