As discussed in our last Recycling Harmonisation blog post, we’ve been researching the different ways recycling is collected across London. We found that nearly every Borough in London uses a different dry recycling collection system, making it difficult for residents to understand their local services. Using data from the WRAP Local Authority Waste and Recycling Portal from 2014-2015 we’ve looked into how garden waste collection services vary between Boroughs in London.
We found that the majority of London Boroughs do offer garden waste collections. Of the services provided across 33 Boroughs, 6 systems combined food and garden waste collections.
London garden waste collections are further divided into chargeable and non chargeable schemes, with the majority of Boroughs offering non-chargeable collections. The collection frequency of garden waste varies between weekly and fortnightly collections, and the container types used include wheeled bin, reusable sacks, non-reusable sacks and a combination. Here at Jump (Local Green Points) we’ve found that engaging residents with door knocking campaigns is one of the best ways to communicate how to recycle correctly using local services. This month we’ve got a team of Door-to-Door Recycling Advisors out in Bexley promoting garden waste collection services.
WRAP and DEFRA officials are considering ways in which local authorities can work to harmonise collection systems to minimise the confusion caused by inconsistent collection systems used across the UK. We plan to look further into the data in the coming weeks to find out how food waste is dealt with across London.
