Ards and North Down Borough is to crack down on “waste tourism” from dodgy dumpers outside the council area, with a brand new set of rules for recycling to be introduced next month.
Ards and North Down Councillors have finally agreed after years of tortured debate on a new recycling regime for the borough, after unusually high dumping in Household Recycling Centres in recent years set the authority’s landfill costs soaring to the highest levels in Northern Ireland.
From Monday December 5, new rules around how waste services are used will be applied to help maximise the amount of the borough’s household waste that is recycled. Access to Household Recycling Centres will only be permitted to households from within the borough, and on-site recycling rules will be applied to all site users.
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Rules banning the disposal of recyclable waste in grey bins will be applied, and routine monitoring of bins will be carried out during bin collection rounds – with suspension of bin collections from a home where the council finds persistent misuse of grey bins for recyclable waste. Throughout November, every household in the borough will receive the new Recycle Guide through their letterbox.
The council said: “ Ards and North Down Council is under a new legal obligation to meet a recycling target of 70% by 2030, following the introduction of the Climate Change Act (NI) 2022. The recycling rate in our Borough is currently below 50% meaning that BIG changes in our recycling habits will need to be made to meet the new 70% target.
“Recycling currently costs less than half the cost of landfill and is vital in helping to save the planet for our children. It is one way we can all make a valuable contribution to help to manage the current cost of living crisis.
“Your money is being used to provide a full range of household recycling services and there is no valid excuse for not adopting a routine household waste recycling habit. Many have already done this, and we want to thank you and ask you to continue.
“However, many residents are not recycling routinely, or as much as they should, and we are therefore calling upon every householder to take simple steps to recycle to the maximum – and in doing so help us to meet our legal obligations, save money and save the planet from climate catastrophe."
The extra cost of landfill incurred by Ards and North Down in the 2020/21 reporting year, compared to the average for other Northern Ireland councils, was almost £716,000. Over that year Ards North Down received 11,360 tons more waste at its HRC's than the average intake for other NI Councils - almost 6,958 tons of extra landfill waste and 4,402 extra tons of recovered/recycled waste.
The recycling rate at its HRC's averaged 59% compared to an average of 71% for other NI Councils. In contrast the borough’s kerbside recycling rate is the second highest out of the eleven council areas.
The Mayor of Ards and North Down, Councillor Karen Douglas, said: “The time for debate around whether we can, should or might recycle, is over. Recycling is no longer an option – it is a must.
“We have legal, environmental and financial reasons to ensure that we take every opportunity to recycle everything we can, using the wide range of council recycling services that are now in place.”
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