Liverpool residents are helping the city boost its recycling rates, according to latest figures.
Compared to the same period last year, requests for blue recycling bins have risen by 110%, with 6,631 requests in the past 12 months, showing strong resident support for improving recycling.
Following Liverpool City Council’s We’re Talking Bins campaign, fewer non-recyclable items are being placed in blue bins, helping to reduce contamination by 13% year on year.
The latest figures come as part of Recycle Week, a nationwide initiative to encourage better uptake in recycling and asking people to re-think what can and cannot be recycled.
A survey conducted by the council had shown that around one in five people still dispose of recyclable items – such as cardboard, cans, paper, glass or plastic bottles, – in their purple waste bins, highlighting a real need for improving public awareness of recycling.
Residents can now recycle items such as plastic containers; plastic pots and tubs; yoghurt pots; aerosol cans, including deodorant and hairspray cans; and metal and plastic chocolate/biscuit tins, to name a few, as part of the Government’s Simpler Recycling requirements under the Environment Act 2021.
Over the past year, the Council has also been rolling out weekly food waste collections for residents, meaning that leftover and scrap food can be kept out of the general waste and collected more regularly.
Residents are being introduced to the new weekly collections in a phased approach, which will continue over the coming months, eventually leading to food collections for everyone living in the city.
Once collected, the food will be taken to be turned into energy, with anything left over being used on farmland or greenspaces, through a similar process to home composting.
Continuing its focus on making recycling and disposing of waste easier for residents, new bin housing for communal bins has recently been announced. The new housing, which will be installed in the near future, will improve the bins’ appearance and have clear guidelines on what items belong in each bin. It is hoped that the new, integrated look, will help to reduce fly-tipping in communal bin areas.
Councillor Laura Robertson-Collins, Cabinet Member for Communities, Neighbourhoods and Streetscene, said: “Improving recycling across Liverpool is incredibly important to us. We know that our recycling rates are not currently where they should be and that steps need to be taken to bring them up.
“We wanted to start closing the knowledge gap around recycling, as we were seeing recyclable materials routinely thrown into general waste instead of recycling bins and vice-versa.
“During the last 12 months, we’ve worked closely with partners and residents to improve awareness, and it’s fantastic to see clear progress. The fact that we have had such a strong increase in requests for blue bins demonstrates a real desire among residents to get behind us and help the city’s recycling rates.
“Of course, we still have work to do, but I am confident that we will get there.”
