Antrim and Newtownabbey householders face prospect of fourth recycling bin

Councillors were told at a meeting of the council’s Operations Committee, at Antrim Civic Centre, on Monday evening, that a weekly food waste collection may be introduced.

The Department for Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (DAERA) is consulting on the future of resources and recycling in Northern Ireland.

A report to the committee said: “The aim is to improve the quality and quantity of household and non-household municipal recycling, reduce food waste, decrease the amount of waste we send to landfill and help enhance the services offered to households and businesses.

“The responses will be used, along with expert advice and evidence, to develop new policy and legislation. Proposals to increase the collection of food waste from households include the possibility of weekly food collections.

“Councils may be required to collect a core set of dry recyclables from households, including glass bottles and containers, paper/card, plastics and metal packaging. Household dry recyclables should be collected separately, as per the wheelie box scheme, to ensure the quality of the recycled materials.”

In reply to a query from Antrim DUP Alderman John Smyth about a potential weekly food waste collection, an officer said: “Research would indicate you get a higher rate of food waste when it is collected weekly.”

Food Waste

Brown bins are provided by the council for food waste which are emptied fortnightly. However, the officer reported food waste still accounts for 30 per cent of black bin waste in the borough. He indicated a new food waste bin could be emptied alongside wheelie boxes and placed in the same vehicle. He also said that householders could have four bins.

Macedon Alliance Councillor Billy Webb MBE asked if new food bins would be “dog proof and magpie proof”. He was told they would have a locking mechanism and could contain 30 to 40 litres of food waste and would be “quite easy to carry”.

“They were used in legacy Antrim for a while in country areas,” the officer recalled. However, he stressed no proposals have been approved or “put in place” by the Department, suggesting “it seems to be the direction of travel”.

Ballyclare Independent Cllr Michael Stewart stated: “It just sounds like it makes things really complicated for people, all those different bins. People have got used to the brown bin. There would be another bin for food waste.

"It is like the ‘Krypton Factor’ to know when to put out bins. It just seems crazy. It is difficult enough to get people to use the right bin to recycle. I think it is really complicated.”

The officer commented: “There is no doubt there are challenges informing the public what bin to put out. The drive behind this consultation is about the quality of recycling materials. At present, a lot are of low quality and get shipped off around the world and do not get processed close to home.”