Regional waste firm Mick George Ltd has launched a ‘residential waste service’, aimed at offering private waste collections to householders in Northampton.
The business has marketed the service directly at residents who wish to ‘opt-out’ of ‘bi-weekly collections and multiple bins’. But the local authority in the area, Northampton borough council, has said the collections are not needed.
Mick George is marketing the service directly to householders in Northampton
According to the company, participating residents will be able to return to the ‘good-old-days’ where they will not need to deal with the “hassle of segregating waste”.
The company is offering a single bin collection using a 240 litre container, at a cost of £259.74 for 26 collections over a 12 month period. The service is available to households in the NN1-5 postcode areas and pledges to achieve 100% diversion of waste from landfill.
And, more recently the business has extended the service to Peterborough and parts of Cambridgeshire.
Collections
Mick George claims that through offering the service, it is alleviating financial pressure placed on councils and adds: ”The service will not affect traditional council collections, but will most definitely complement it.”
Abigail Johnson, head of commercial waste at Mick George, said: “The commercial waste service has established itself as one of the business’s core offerings in the last 18 months, and the professionalism we’ve delivered has been rewarded with high-profile contracts and award recognition.”
She added: “For this reason, expanding in to the B2C market with this service is a natural progression. With our skip, concrete and aggregate offering, we’re already well versed in supplying residential customers with a first-class service, and our intentions do not change with this provision.”
Recycling collections in Northampton are carried out on a weekly basis, but the council offers a fortnightly service for residual waste
However, Northampton borough council, which provides a waste service to the residents being offered private collections, has insisted that there is no need for residents to seek to use a private contractor to provide additional collections.
Council
The council operates a fortnightly black wheeled-bin collection service for residual waste, alternating with a fortnightly garden waste service. Recycling, which is collected using blue, black and green boxes, and food waste are both collected weekly.
The council has also surveyed residents this year on the future delivery of the service, ahead of a changeover of its contract in 2018.
Cllr Mike Hallam, Northampton’s cabinet member for environment, said: “With the breadth of services available and a dedicated customer services team on hand five days a week, the borough council reassures residents that additional collections are not necessary.”
Mick George’s move into the residential waste collection market follows similar business ventures to have sprung up in other areas of the UK where local authority waste collections have been reduced to either fortnightly or three-weekly.
Rochdale
In the Greater Manchester borough of Rochdale – where the council has moved to a three weekly residual waste collection regime – a private company called ‘Busy Bins’ is advertising a collection of waste “on the weeks the council don’t”. The service is also being offered to some households in Bolton, Manchester and Oldham.
“If the grey bin is only used for waste that can’t be recycled then it should not be necessary for any household to top up their collections.”
Cllr Alan Quinn
Rochdale
Residents in those areas can pay an annual price of £255 for 36 waste collections or pay for a ‘slim bins’ option, which costs £153 per year and involves 26 collections over 12 months.
Responding to the introduction of the private service in Bury, councillor Alan Quinn, the council’s cabinet member for environment, said: “Everything our residents need to recycle we provide free of charge: a blue bin – for cans, tins and aerosols, glass bottles and jars, foil and plastic bottles; a green bin – for paper and cardboard, and a brown bin and kitchen caddy – for food waste and garden waste.
“If the grey bin is only used for waste that can’t be recycled then it should not be necessary for any household to top up their collections. If anyone is having problems with managing their waste our Recycling Team is here to help. For households with extra waste they can’t recycle, such as large families, we provide extra grey bin space, following a waste audit.”
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Source: letsrecycle.com Waste Managment
