From April 2019, residents across North Ayrshire will be able to recycle more at home.
That’s because the Council is rolling out a new, purple recycling bin to all households on the mainland and Cumbrae (Arran’s service will be reviewed separately at a later date).
Households will begin to receive their purple bin from 25 February and should start to use it after their last blue bin collection in March.
The purple bin will form part of an enhanced waste collection service which will see the purple bin, along with the grey and blue bins, collected as part of a new three weekly cycle.
Its introduction will also see a slight change to the items that go into each bin:
Purple bin – glass, cans, plastics and cartons (CHANGE)Blue bin – paper, card and cardboard (CHANGE)Grey bin – general waste which cannot be recycled (NO CHANGE)
The brown bin will continue to be used for food and garden waste and be collected fortnightly.
The changes form part of the Council’s commitment to increase recycling to over 60% by 2020, to meet the Scottish Government’s recycling targets. This target will increase further to 70% by 2025.
Studies have shown that around 71% of the rubbish in the average grey bin in North Ayrshire could be recycled or composted – showing there’s significant room for improvement.
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By giving households an additional recycling bin, it provides more capacity to divert some of the 71% of recyclable items that currently go into the grey bin.
Councillor Jim Montgomerie, Cabinet Member for Place, said: “Like all local authorities across Scotland, we have been set targets by the Scottish Government to recycle at least 60% of household waste by 2020 and 70% by 2025. To meet these targets, we must make changes.
“By giving households this additional recycling bin, it will provide them with more space to recycle more items and in turn, do more for our local environment.
“When we started this project, we looked at what other local authorities were offering and it was apparent that there are many complicated systems in place across the country. We were clear from the very start that our changes had to be as simple and straight forward as possible for our residents.
“By having three bins, collected over three weeks, it is literally as simple as 1, 2, 3. We have also kept our brown bin service, for food and garden waste, on the same fortnightly collection that is currently offered.”
Councillor Montgomerie added: “There is of course going to be a period of adjustment for our residents - but we will be on hand to help.
“As well as issuing detailed information to our residents, our Waste Awareness Team will be hosting information stalls across North Ayrshire for people to have their questions answered. We’ve also got a dedicated webpage where people can go for general information and our Customer Services Team will be on hand to answer specific queries.”
All households will receive information though the post detailing these changes along with their new bin collection calendar which commences in April. Information is also available on the Council’s website at www.north-ayrshire.gov.uk/binchanges2019