MONMOUTHSHIRE County Council (MCC) is proposing

further changes to its household refuse collection service.

The main proposal, and the change that will impact on all households, is for residents to provide their own bin bags for household waste. This would do away with council provided grey bin bags, though collections would still be limited to two bags per household each fortnight.

The other proposal is for yellow bag waste (hygiene/nappy waste) to be collected fortnightly rather than the current weekly scheme.

Other services, such as the weekly collection of red and purple recycling bags, would remain the same.

The move away from grey bags would save MCC £80,000 from its refuse budget while the reduction in yellow bag collection would save £100,000 a year as a result of a reduction in three vehicles and three operatives from the workforce.

In a document entitled 'Equality Initial Challenge,' on the 12th December 2014, negative impacts of the proposed policy were explored for the council. The document says: "The weekly collection of nappy/ hygiene waste was introduced at the same time as the introduction of fortnightly refuse collections in 2010. This was to help those householders manage this "smelly" waste in the intervening weeks.

"There could be concern about health effects of the storage of this waste for two weeks and residents concerned that they would not have the capacity within their residual two bag limit to manage this waste."

To mitigate these negative impacts the document proposes: "Residents can make use of the four Household Waste Recycling Centres for more regular disposal of this waste and this will be communicated clearly.

"Guidance will be provided on appropriate wrapping and storage of this waste to reduce the impact of a fortnightly collection. At the same time MCC will communicate that there are no health effects from the storage of this waste for two weeks. The use of 'real' nappies is also to be promoted."

Previously, MCC had expected to recycle hygiene waste (yellow bags) but in 2013 the recycling plant that could deal with this type of waste closed down. MCC says, in its Waste Budget Mandate: "With the onset of Project Gwyrdd and the use of the Trident Park energy-from-waste plant, it is now more cost effective to send this material for disposal – i.e. it is cheaper than what MCC was paying for recycling." (Waste Collection Changes Policy and Budget Approval Cabinet meeting – 7th January 2015).

Project Gwyrdd (to which MCC is fully subscribed) aims to reduce the amount of waste produced, reuse as much waste as possible, recycle that which cannot be reused, recover value from that which cannot be recycled and dispose of that from which value cannot be recovered.

As part of this project, the new Trident Park Energy Recovery Facility in Cardiff is close to readiness. Once fully operational the facility will be handling 350,000 tonnes of residual waste or post-recycling waste per year, generating 28MW of electricity. This is enough to power around 50,000 households.

172,000 tonnes of that waste will be coming from the five councils that make up the Proiect Gwyrdd partnership: Monmouthshire, Cardiff, Newport, Vale of Glamorgan and Caerphilly. 

Should the proposals be recommended at today's MCC Cabinet meeting (Wednesday 7th January) prior to the council's budget meeting on 22nd January, the changes would come into effect officially from 1st July 2015. This corresponds with the start date two years ago.

For those households that still have supplies of grey bags after this date, they are advised to continue using them until their stock is exhausted and then switch to generic black bags which, at maximum size of 75x95cm, should not exceed the currently issued bin bags.