Forest council faces bill for rejected recycling

THE New Forest is facing mounting pressure to improve its recycling rates as Hampshire County Council plans to charge local authorities millions for contaminated waste.

HCC has responsibility for disposing of rubbish and is now considering making back £8.2m from the county’s 11 district councils, including the New Forest, whose duty is to collect household refuse.

Hampshire is facing an £80m gap in its overall finances and, as processing costs increase, wants to charge authorities for rejected deliveries of recycling – which it said amounts to one in every five loads.

NFDC is close to the bottom of the national recycling tables and so could be hit hard by HCC’s proposed policy which, if approved as part of the overall budget, would come in after April 2021.

As reported in the A&T, NFDC has refused to rule out introducing wheelie bins to make its collection more efficient as the government seeks to raise national recycling rates to 55% by 2025. Latest official figures show NFDC reached just 34.1% in 2017/18.

HCC’s plan is due to pass its first stage by being signed off on Tuesday by Cllr Rob Humby, the Conservative cabinet member for economy, transport and environment.

He said he wanted to save money to protect the county’s network of recycling centres, including locally at Efford, Marchwood and Somerley. About 100,000 bin loads are delivered by councils to its facilities every weekday.

Admitting the county’s “poor” performance, Cllr Humby said: “The world has moved on since we set up the current arrangements with the district councils to manage Hampshire’s waste and recycling in the mid-1990s – and so must we.

“One in every five lorryloads of kerbside recycling arriving at our facilities now fails to meet recycling standards, and we can no longer afford to subsidise the current system which is failing to deliver the standards agreed over 20 years ago.

“We need to take decisive action to make sure that the reduced resources we have are targeted at boosting recycling levels. It is vital we have the right systems and funding arrangements in place to meet government targets and future demand.

“I recognise that this will be challenging for all of us, but my intention is that we should work together to improve recycling performance across Hampshire.”

Not one district council in Hampshire is in the top half of the recycling table, he said, adding: “This demonstrates that there is considerable room for improvement.”

NFDC’s cabinet member for environment and regulatory services, Cllr Alison Hoare, has previously said she will approach changes to waste collection with an “open mind”.

Responding to Cllr Humby’s plans, a spokesperson for NFDC said: “At this stage we do not know what the amount will be but we will be considering any impact on the budget as part of the development of our new waste strategy.

“We continue to work with HCC on encouraging recycling and reducing contamination. Putting the right things in to the recycling – paper, card. tins, and cans, aerosols, plastic bottles – remains just as important.”

HCC has reduced spending overall by £480m since 2010. Its environment department is aiming to cut spending by £11.7m, which could include losing 15-25 full-time posts. It also intends to raise the charge to residents per bag of soil and rubble by 50p to reach £3 from 1st November.

Cllr Humby added: “Across the county council, savings proposals are being developed to bridge the funding gap we face due to reductions in our funding from government, rising costs and inflation, and growing demand for council services.”