21/10/22

The new kerbside-sort recycling scheme is being expanded to a further 5,000 properties across the city, to improve the quality of the recycling collected from residents' homes, increase the city's recycling rate and strive towards the challenging Welsh Government recycling targets.

Specific properties in eight wards across the city will receive the new service, and all residents that are taking part in the scheme will receive a letter next week, to advise them about the changes.

The new reusable containers are:

• A red sack for plastic and cans
• A blue sack for paper and cardboard
• A blue caddy for glass bottles and jars.

The kerbside-sort recycling method is the Welsh Government's preferred method of collecting recycling from residents' homes - as set out in their Towards Zero Waste Strategy. This method of collecting recycling is used by nearly every local authority in Wales and has helped make Wales one of the best recycling nations in the world.

The new recycling method has already been trialled in four wards in Cardiff and our aim is to roll out the new scheme city-wide over the next two years.

Early indications from the trials show that the quality of the recycling collected from residents' homes has increased dramatically compared to collecting recycling in green bags. In the trial areas, the contamination rate - which are items that are put out for recycling, but in fact cannot be recycled - has reduced from 30% to 6% in these areas.

Cllr Caro Wild, Cabinet Member for Climate Change at Cardiff Council, said: "We are serious about our commitments around climate change, and we were elected on a mandate to take bold action. The waste and recycling we all create is part of our carbon footprint, and this new system aims to reduce this as we manage the earth's valuable resources in a much more sustainable way. We need to move to a more circular economy where instead of using materials once and then throwing them away, we re-use and re-manufacture materials. This would not only be far better for the planet but create green jobs as we re-manufacture and re-purpose these materials locally.

"So far the residents involved in the trials have been brilliant, and their valuable feedback is being used to improve the system as we grow it."

The need to tackle the Climate Change Emergency is well known to residents across the city, but everyone can make a huge difference to reduce the city's carbon footprint by reducing, reusing and recycling and composting as much of their waste as possible, as we strive towards becoming a carbon neutral city by 2030."

The next phase of the roll out will be expanded to 5,000 more properties, in eight wards across the city but not all of the properties in these wards. The wards are:

• Heath West & Grangetown
• Splott & Rhiwbina
• Radyr & Llandaff
• Pentwyn & Trowbridge

There will also be a small number of properties within our rural collection rounds, which span across a number of areas.

Residents that are part of the roll out will receive a letter next week to their home (October 24^thto October 28^th) outlining the new service. The new containers will be delivered from November 7^th, with a detailed leaflet explaining how to use them. Council staff will be working on-street to engage with residents about the scheme to answer any questions they may have.

New purpose-built vehicles will be used in these trials, with separate compartments to store the different recyclable items, so the recyclable material is separated at source rather than through a secondary sorting process.

Residents that are part of the expanded scheme will have their last collection of green bags week commencing 21^stNovember, with the first collection of recycling in their reusable sacks in the week commencing November28^th.

When the kerb-side sort recycling scheme is expanded to all properties in Cardiff in the next two years, 24 million green bags will no longer be used for waste collections in the city, significantly reducing the use of single use plastics.

The council will continue to monitor the scheme, as we roll out to different wards in the city, to monitor the size and type of reusable containers used, any changes to the recycling rate in these areas, as well as the level of contamination in the reusable sacks. This data will then be used by the council to improve the scheme, as we continue to roll out the scheme city-wide.