Eastbourne: Have Your Say On Waste Collection

Eastbourne Borough Council is set to go out to consultation on a “big change” to the town’s bin collections.

At a cabinet meeting on Wednesday (September 16), Eastbourne council leaders agreed to go out to consultation on waste services, which the authority says will reduce carbon emissions and allow it “to meet challenging national and local recycling targets”. 

While no detailed proposals have yet been made public, both council papers and cabinet members discussed the possibility of “alternate weekly collections”.

This, council papers say, would mean waste and recycling are each only collected once a fortnight, on alternating weeks i.e. general waste collections one week and recycling the next.

Liberal Democrat cabinet member for climate change Jonathan Dow said:

“The majority of the local authorities across the UK have already moved to alternate weekly collections — one week waste, the next week recycling — and in some cases have three- or four-weekly collections of refuse. 

“This has resulted in a greater efficiency of collections and has influenced residents behaviour in how they sort their waste, with more recyclables being put in green bins.”

Cllr Dow said any changes — among other reasons — were intended to help the council improve its recycling rates and hit government targets.

The national recycling target for household waste this year is 50% and is set to increase to 65% by 2035.

However, the authority only achieved a 35.2% recycling rate last year and currently only expects to hit around 34.88% this year. 

The percentage of household waste which has been sent by Eastbourne Borough Council for reuse, recycling and composting:  

• Provisional rate for 2019/20: 34.88%  
• 2018/19, confirmed as: 35.2%

Cllr Dow said:

“The borough’s consultation is to help the council understand the barriers to residents recycling more. 

“Alongside the consultation, Environment First (the council’s in-house waste collection company) will also look at potential changes to the collection service, which if adopted would help reduce carbon emissions as well as help address the financial pressures on the council.

“The consultation has the potential to support the council’s financial position, of which we’ve heard a considerable amount this evening.

"That is very, very challenging obviously.

“It does this hand-in-hand with the local authority’s green and environmental ambitions.

"This is exactly what I wanted to see once the council unanimously supported the climate emergency motion last year.”

The topic was also addressed by Cllr Penny DiCara, deputy leader of the council’s Conservative group. 

Cllr DiCara said:

“We are fully supportive of improvements to the amount of recycling and welcome efforts to achieve this. 

“When I first started raising the issue of recycling at cabinet about four or five years ago, Eastbourne had the second lowest local recycling rate. It was only Hastings that was below it.

“It looks like that’s where we are again.”

However, Cllr DiCara also warned that any changes should result in “meaningful improvements”.

She said:

“You need to get some meaningful improvements from any changes we make to our collections.

“I just wouldn’t want to see it become just a cost-cutting exercise”

The consultation is expected to begin later this month (Monday, September 28).