Reminder for Westray folk to respond with recycling views

Westray recycling survey reminder

The Council is reminding folk in Westray to respond to a letter sent in early August seeking comments in relation to options for future recycling services in the island.

Feedback is being requested by Monday 28 August wherever possible.

As a reminder, the three options folk have been asked for feedback on are:

1. The roll out of wheelie bins to households to provide the same ‘alternate weekly’ service as on Orkney mainland and Shapinsay – with glass and plastics collected one fortnight; and metals paper the next fortnight (and so on). Kerbside waste collections would be the intervening weeks.
2. Provide kerbside wheelie bin collection for refuse only; with communal bins or ‘bring sites’ for recyclables located at several sites across Westray.
3. Continue to collect household refuse in sacks at the kerbside, with additional communal recycling points as described in Option 2.

The Council is also inviting ideas from residents of where ‘bring sites’ could be located (for Options 2 and 3), bearing in mind there needs to be adequate space for safe use and there will also be land ownership/permissions considerations.

Full details are in the letter sent to households dated 2 August - anyone who has misplaced their letter can contact Anna Gibb at the Council’s waste team, or view it below. Comments can be emailed to recycling@orkney.gov.uk

Letter to Westray residents - dated 02 August 2023

Dear householder,

Westray Recycling Collection

I would like to sincerely apologise for the delay in providing you with this update. In the letter sent to you in January 2023, we said we would be in touch in April 2023 but the work around reviewing options for how to provide a recycling service to Westray turned out to be more challenging than we anticipated.

Having carefully looked at the issues, we have confirmed that we will not be able to collect recycling at the kerbside in plastic bags. This is because we are not able to provide the additional staff required at Chinglebraes to open the bags and separate the recycling. In the interests of complete transparency, we do not want to risk that material carefully separated by Westray residents will not get recycled and continue in a situation which just does not deliver on the recycling ambitions of the community.

Therefore, we have been working to find a different solution for Westray residents to improve access to recycling facilities. Our Waste and Recycling Officer visited Westray on a collection day to identify issues that could arise if we introduced a wheelie bin service, such as difficult to access areas, or properties located too far from the collection point to have a wheelie bin. We recognise that emptying bins takes a little longer than bags and are aware of the time constraints to complete the collection rounds due to the ferry timings.

In this time, we also received an update about the Deposit Return Scheme (DRS) that is administered by Scottish Government. We now know that the DRS has been delayed until 2025 and will not include glass containers.

With the above factors in mind, we are considering three options to increase the access to recycling services for residents. This letter was sent to the Community Council, for their comment, on 22 June 2023.

Option 1: Wheelie bin collection for both refuse and recycling.

Bins would be collected on a four-week cycle:

• Week 1: Refuse collection
• Week 2: Two streams of recycling in separate bins (glass and plastic)
• Week 3: Refuse collection
• Week 4: Two streams of recycling (paper and tins).

Each recycling stream would need to be presented loose, and in separate bins. This is the same as the service provided to residents on Mainland Orkney and Shapinsay. The potential issues with this option are likely to be a greater time required to empty bins, especially on recycling week when two bins are presented. As a result, bins would need to be presented at the main road, which could be a significant distance for many householders to transport their bins. Bins may be stored and secured at the public roadside, with landowner permission - but cannot be tied down with ropes, bungees or chains on collection day.

We understand that there will be households where there is nobody physically able to move the bins and present them on the kerbside for collection. Those residents would be able to request an assisted collection. Also, households who may struggle to use wheelie bins due to space or due to the distance to their kerbside collection point can apply to use Council-issued red bags rather than wheelie bins, for their waste and re-usable bags for recycling.

Option 2: Providing wheelie bin collection for refuse only and collect recycling in a number of communal bins, or ‘bring sites’ that will be located at several sites across Westray.

Each site would have bins for glass, paper, tins and cans, and plastic - the same materials as previously collected at kerbside. Servicing multiple bins at these locations would take significantly less time than collecting from the kerbside and the bin lorry would be able to make the return ferry to Mainland Orkney. This option depends on whether we can find suitable locations that can accommodate a minimum of four wheelie bins, and ideally slightly bigger bins for plastic.

The recycling bins would be emptied by a collection vehicle every two weeks. Glass and plastic will be collected on the first visit and paper and tins two weeks later. This means each recycling material will be on a scheduled four weekly collection. The refuse would be collected in bins at the kerbside every two weeks.

We would like to ask for your help to identify where the ‘bring sites’ could be potentially located. Any site would have to be easily accessible from the public road, with a safe place for the collection vehicle to stop and empty the containers. If it is not Council land, then we would need to have permission from the landowner. Ideally the sites would also be spread across Westray to minimise the distance that any resident has to travel to drop off their recycling. This option would be quicker to implement than delivering individual bins to each household.

Commercial customers will also need to use bins to present their waste and recycling for collection.

Either of the proposed options would be treated as a trial in the first instance. We will monitor how much recycling is collected and, for Option 2, if the number of bins in each location is adequate. At the end of the 12 month trial, we will review the outcomes and determine whether any changes need to be made.

Please note that any new recycling service improvement would replace the recycling skip in Pierowall. The skip would be removed once the new recycling service is rolled out to the island.

We would also be interested in hearing your opinions on the following Option 3.

Option 3: Continue to collect household refuse in sacks at the kerbside but provide additional communal recycling points as described in Option 2.

This would remove some of the difficulties for householders around using bins but provides improved recycling facilities, with the bins emptied to a regular schedule.

If you would like to provide us with feedback please do so by email to recycling@orkney.gov.uk or alternatively call 01856 873535 by 28 August 2023.

Thank you in advance for your help.

Yours sincerely,

Hayley Green, Corporate Director

Neighbourhood Services and Infrastructure, Orkney Islands Council