I have today expressed concern to the City Council’s Environment Director following news that a new mixed recyclates pilot to expand Dundee’s recycling effort is very limited and excludes 3 of out Dundee’s 8 wards completely including the West End.
The council has updated me as follows:
"As we are limited in the number of properties we're able to service for such a small pilot, it was therefore not possible to include all wards - in the same way that it was not possible to include all wards in the food waste trial - and it was felt that the West End ward was already fairly well serviced by the current green box scheme. However ... there is a deadline of 1st January 2014 to have collections of this nature rolled out to all serviceable properties within the city so I'd hope that following a successful pilot scheme, we'd be able to quickly roll-out the service to cover all suitable properties within the west end and across the city as a whole."
I have arranged to meet the City Council’s Director of Environment to discuss the matter and in particular how the pilot can be extended to cover all 8 Dundee Wards and more houses across Dundee.
Many of my West End constituents would like to recycle more but they have no facilities to recycle, for example, plastics. Any expansion of the recycling facilities offered to householders is welcomed but the crucial point is that there is a deadline of 1st January 2014 to have collections of this nature rolled out to all properties within Dundee and at the rate this pilot is going at, meeting that target looks challenging to say the least.
I want the pilot extended to more houses that are crying out for proper recycling facilities and I want all 8 Dundee Wards included. I don’t think it is acceptable that 3 have been excluded including the West End so I have arranged to meet the Director of Environment at Dundee City Council to make the case for an expansion of the pilot.