Recycling to change in Dalston

Dalston residents will notice a change in their recycling from Friday, March 1 as the service becomes easier to use.

Green sacks, replacing green boxes will be used by residents in street level properties, flats above shops and on low rise estates.

The recyclable sacks will contain all dry recycling and are designed to solve problems people have had with the old green box service.

Previously, recycling in green boxes was sorted by hand on a slow moving vehicle which caused congestion on busy and narrow roads.

The sacks will also help to prevent litter blowing away when left out collection, keeping streets cleaner.

The changes will help Hackney to increase its current recycling rate of 25%, with the borough aiming for 34% by 2020.

Cllr Feryal Demirci, Cabinet Member for Neighbourhoods, said: "We've made a lot of progress since first introducing recycling in Hackney, but to recycle more we need to provide collections for as many residents as possible and make recycling even easier for everyone.

"More than 14,000 households were unable to use the green box service as they simply had nowhere to store them, new collections will allow these residents to recycle from their doorsteps for the first time.

"We trialled this scheme previously in Cazenove ward and we've found that people recycle even more which will help us to contribute towards the North London target of recycling 50% of our waste by 2020. It will also help to save money, reducing landfill costs by millions of pounds which can be reinvested in services."

The new service will also be delivered in-house, with staff from the current private sector recycling company transferred over to the council. This will help the council to deliver waste and recycling services with one team and one fleet of vehicles.

More than 41,000 households will recieve the new service as part of the biggest change to collections since recycling was first introduced to the borough.

Teams of recycling advisers have visited every property affected, talking to residents and leaving behind information on how to use the new service.

Feedback from the Cazenove ward showed that 64% of people preferred the new recycling scheme with residents feeling it was easier to do than using the green boxes.

Fewer collections were missed in trial wards, reducing by up to 92% and collection times were more than halved.

The new collections will also be supported by expansions in garden waste and food waste recycling allowing more people to recycle.

For more information click here