How Shropshire Council wants to remove 26,000 of waste and save £1m

The authority says it wants to reduce 20 per cent of all waste produced by county households by 2030, which would remove over 26,000 tonnes of rubbish from the system.

The move could save up to £1 million pounds every year due to the reduced cost of handling waste, and by freeing up capacity at the incinerator in Shrewsbury which could then be sold to generate income.

The Shropshire Council’s draft waste minimisation strategy will go under the magnifying glass at a meeting of the council’s Economy and Environment Scrutiny Committee next week (September 6).

“Shropshire’s residents can justifiably be proud of how they have responded to the call to recycle during the last two decades. From a countywide performance that was in single figures, to now consistently recycling and composting well over half of Shropshire’s household waste is a fantastic achievement,” the meeting will be told.

“Recycling and composting performance has however plateaued in recent years, with outturns regularly being between 50 to 55% of waste diverted from incineration or landfill. Performance gains are becoming increasingly difficult to achieve.

“Despite having a good recycling and composting performance, Shropshire has one of the highest quantities of waste per household in the country costing the council around £35m per year to collect and dispose of, which equates to 6 per cent of the council’s entire budget.”

In its draft strategy, the authority says it has used the results of a pilot study in Bishops Castle alongside analysis of waste delivered to the Shrewsbury incinerator site to get an accurate picture of recycling habits in the county.

Statistics provided in the report show Shropshire has a higher than national average amount of waste deposited at household recycling centres, which it attributes in part to commercial waste being illegally deposited along with “waste tourism”, people bringing in waste from outside the area due to convenience or cost.

An action plan to lower recyclable waste included as part of the document will focus first on reducing green waste, initially by introducing a charging policy for collections alongside promoting home composting initiatives.

Other initiatives planned will include the introduction of a previously announced booking scheme for recycling centres to reduce out-of-county waste deposits, as well as campaigns around reducing food waste, which forms around a fifth of recyclable materials.

The council has operated without a formal waste minimisation strategy since 2015, when the previous five year strategy expired.

A recommendation to approve the strategy will be discussed at the council’s scrutiny committee on Friday, September 6, before being passed to full council.