 Belfast City Council wants more people to recycle rubbish |
Belfast City Council has warned to meet EU regulations and encourage more recycling, it will reduce its black bin collection to a fortnightly service. The council faces a big rise in waste disposal costs over the next few years.
The amount of waste councils are allowed to send to landfill is now regulated. If they breach the limit, councils trigger large fines.
For 11,000 households black bins and recycling bins will be collected in alternate weeks from 6 June.
The council said that it hoped 20,000 households will have blue recycling bins by April 2006. These take paper but from next month will also take cardboard, plastic bottles, tins and cans.
It hopes 55,000 households will also have brown bins for garden waste by next year and these homes would then be affected by the changes to collection services.
Currently just 10% of Belfast's waste is recycled. To escape the fines that figure needs to more than double.
The council has warned that unless it can dramatically increase its recycling rates, the cost of getting rid of its rubbish will rise ten-fold within two years to �15m.
Any fines for breaching the landfill limit would ultimately be paid by ratepayers.
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