Brown bins for all across the Borough?

At present, most residents of the legacy council areas of Ballymoney, Moyle and Limavady use brown bins to recycle foood waste and grass cutting.

A pilot project for brown kitchen food caddies is being trialled in parts of the Coleraine area at present but the issue of large brown bins was raised at Tuesday’s meeting of Causeway Coast and Glens Borough Council’s Environmental Services Committee.

Members were asked to adopt an additional bin policy when Coleraine Alderman Sam Cole said that he had been approached by constituents in Coleraine asking when they would get brown bins like their counterparts in Ballymoney.

“They look at Ballymoney with envy because they have nowhere to put their grass cuttings,” he said.

Coleraine councillor George Duddy said that the kitchen caddies were not ideal as many people didn’t want to put them out for collection on windy days as they were so light that they blew over, spilling contents onto the street.

He also queried whether less able bodied people were able to carry the caddies.

Director of Environmental Services Aidan McPeak said that the introduction of brown bins in the former Moyle Council area had resulted in a “substantial increase” in recycling of food waste and grass cuttings.

He said that it also went some way to reducing the landfill costs incurred by Council who are targeted with increasing the current recycling rate of 38% to 45% by 2020.

Chief Executive of CC&GC David Jackson said that the introduction of brown bins throughout the Borough was a “fairly major piece of work” which is already being looked at and would begin with talks this week with the trades unions involved.

Mr Jackson explained that an issue like providing brown bins and their subsequent collections was a piece of work which saw Council moving from “transition” (ie ensuring there was no change to services for rate payers from March 31st to April 1st) to a “fundamental service redesign”.