Kerbside Recycling Change Scandal
In June 2024, Denbighshire County Council scrapped the popular, easy-to-use and high-performing blue wheelie bin and switched to a less flexible system which has made recycling more difficult; left many streets in a littered state; and is unlikely to bring any improvement to recycling figures which could not have been achieved with the previous system.
The council followed this path under heavy pressure from the Labour/Plaid Welsh Government to adopt their preferred model, but did not have to do so.
At the time of implementation, Denbighshire County Council was close to having spent £22m of taxpayers' money on the changes - including £10m of its own funds (£1m from reserves and £9m borrowed).
In early October 2024, Denbighshire County Council's Labour/Plaid Cabinet acknowledged that the rollout of the new system "hasn't worked as we envisaged". £640,000 extra had already been spent on overtime, agency staff and the hire of additional vehicles. It was agreed to borrow £1.299m more to purchase additional recycling vehicles. It was also agreed to take on further staff and to increase the number of waste collection rounds by 40%. The result is to be an additional cost to the council of £1.067m every year.
This outcome has vindicated concerns I raised in writing five years ago and repeatedly since (https://www.jamesdavies.org.uk/sites/www.jamesdavies.org.uk/files/2024-…) - including that the modelling of collection rounds was likely to be overly optimistic and that any switchover needed to be on a phased basis. In summary, I said in 2019: "...it is not at all clear that the proposed changes would be less costly [than retaining the existing system], as both the initial and ongoing capital and revenue funding requirements are unlikely to be have been fully scoped. To put faith in over-optimistic theoretical modelling which indicates relatively small savings, while at the same time so many potentially costly unknowns exist, means exposing the council to excessive risk and is unlikely to be justified when it will result in a worse service for householders".
The reason given for the service changes was the need to increase recycling rates, yet the most recent statistics (2022-23) demonstrated that Denbighshire was already achieving an impressive 65.9% recycling rate. It was performing above average for Wales, and second best out of the six councils in North Wales. Importantly, it was doing better than some councils which already had the model it intended to implement.
The actual reason for the change was always about trying to save money, and receiving millions in the process for setup costs from the Welsh Government. Yet the projected annual savings were always small and based on variable factors. As predicted, the £22m upfront cost of the change and now the additional £1.067m per annum cost mean that the inferior new system will cost the taxpayer significantly more than the successful former one.
I consider the council's decision to ignore opposition and plough ahead regardless to be one of the worst decisions it has ever made, and to be unforgivable in the context of this year's 9.34% council tax increase.
The introduction of the new system in June 2024 followed on from many delays and cost increases, the impact of which were never properly reviewed. The council proceeded on the basis of support from its Cabinet only - Full Council was never given a vote on the matter.
There are separate unpopular and onerous Welsh Government requirements that workplaces have had to conform to since April 2024, which do not apply in England.
Campaign
In October 2019, amongst other measures, Denbighshire County Council (DCC) proposed to replace the blue wheelie bin with separate ‘kerbside sort’ recycling boxes stacked up on a trolley (the "trolleybox"). I responded to this proposal with a 5-page submission (as referred to above).
Since before being re-elected as MP for the Vale of Clwyd in December 2019, I had campaigned on behalf of residents in Denbighshire to retain the blue bin kerbside recycling service.
I have on many occasions since that time met and exchanged correspondence with senior officers and county councillors. There were other ways in which recycling rates could have been boosted while retaining the blue wheelie bin. However, they showed an unwillingness to reconsider or explore a range of other options or compromises.
Limited consultation carried out by the council was dishonest - failing to spell out the fact that the blue bin was under threat. There was in general a reluctance to communicate the proposed changes to the public, in the knowledge that they would be very unpopular.
I made two particular suggestions to the council in July 2021:
(1) That optimal recycling promotion and enforcement activity be implemented on the existing system. If recycling rates were the true reason for the change, the council would already have been doing this.
(2) That a full assessment be carried out on the impact of the forthcoming national Deposit Return Scheme, the details of which currently remain unclear, but which threatened to derail any business case for the council’s proposals.
In 2022 and early 2023, I made further calls for a re-evaluation of the council's plans, given spiralling costs. I was led to believe that there was always a Plan B which involved retention of the blue bin. However, there was a strong reluctance by the then newly elected council to examine this.
In the spring of 2023, I sent out 5,000 surveys which included a question about the kerbside recycling service. Replies indicated that the vast majority wanted to retain the existing system - but it was evident that many still remained unaware of the proposed changes.
In November 2023, I visited Shotton Mills Ltd (SML) with Gareth Davies MS and Denbighshire Conservative Councillors. This facility was the destination of Denbighshire's co-mingled blue bin kerbside waste, which it processed via a Materials Recovery Facility (MRF).
The company advised us that the UK has a requirement of 8m tonnes of cardboard per annum but currently only has the capacity to process and produce 3m tonnes. Britain currently exports recycled fibre to the continent and imports cardboard boxes. SML is therefore investing heavily in the site, converting its newspaper production to cardboard box production. They also intend to produce tissue products.
SML will need to actively encourage councils to send it paper and cardboard waste so as to allow it to fulfil its future plans for the site. It sells sorted glass and plastic “downstream” and can continue to do this. As a result of the Welsh Government's policy strategy, it is now having to bring most of the waste it processes from elsewhere in the UK.
My assessment was that SML needed DCC’s paper and card waste in particular and that the collection of cardboard in a bag attached to a trolleybox has been a backward step, with the material being more liable to be wet, hampering the recycling process.
Council Refuses to Listen
Unfortunately, in March 2023 I was advised that: “the formal view of the council is that switching to the new waste model is not a mistake” and that “current [Labour-led] Cabinet…remain strongly supportive of the project…”
These plans were put in place despite the fact that other councils in the country, with UK Government encouragement, had been making the opposite move - from boxes to co-mingled wheelie bins - and that many residents in neighbouring Conwy, which already had a trolleybox system, continued to complain bitterly at the lack of space for cardboard and the mess created when the trolleyboxes blow over on windy collection days.
Denbighshire CC confirmed to me that they had no plans to increase road sweeping to remove street litter under the new system, even though this was found to be necessary prior to the blue wheelie bin system being introduced.
Background
Between 2006 and 2012, the mixed recycling blue bin replaced a primitive system of recycling collections by way of a blue box and dumpy bag. As a resident and at that point also a County Councillor, I knew that the old system made recycling too difficult and frequently allowed litter to escape onto our streets.
The introduction of the co-mingled blue wheelie bin service was popular as well as successful. It helped Denbighshire County Council achieve excellent recycling rates compared with other counties. Recycling was made convenient and flexible and, of course, the environment benefited as a result.
Despite this, the Welsh Government (WG) has persistently applied pressure on the council to move away from the blue bin, at significant cost to the taxpayer. For a number of years, the council rightly rejected this, producing leaflets and posters such as the one uploaded to this page.
Where from here?
Quite apart from the scandalous costs involved, the new recycling system has been shown to be a step backwards. The trolleybox and attachments have limited capacity, are flimsy, and are prone to blowing over in the wind.
National legislation will increasingly require a simpler range of packaging that is more easily recyclable, while a UK-wide Deposit Return Scheme will also change the waste that needs collecting.
In my view, the County Council needs to look towards reinstating household wheelie bin collections for recyclable materials - possibly adopting dual stream co-mingled collections as are being introduced by other councils.
The council states that it cannot reverse the recent changes, else the Welsh Government will claw back millions of pounds of grant funding it has received. However, my understanding is that no serious discussions have yet taken place between the council and the Welsh Government to properly explore this matter. The new waste model has required the construction of a new depot on the Colomendy Industrial Estate in Denbigh and there is scope for this to be used in any scenario.
N.B. The video above was filmed in 2019, before the project costs increased.
YouTube video 2024 General Election:
Previous Facebook posts on this matter:
9th Jan 2019: https://www.facebook.com/share/p/LTNo59bsjz33oD2r
11th Jun 2019: https://www.facebook.com/share/p/4H1AF1vvB8bdzHAc
16th Nov 2019: https://www.facebook.com/share/v/mk3tnkoPWktfPELJ