The petitioners of the City of Birmingham declare that;

In the past 12 months we, as a city, have seen 6% less recyclable household waste collected per resident than in 2014. For that reason, as part of the City’s pledge to revise the strategy for refuse collections, we, the undersigned, believe that the decline in the quantity of recyclable waste collected shows that the current service is inefficient and requires significant improvement in the short and long term.

Furthermore, we encourage the council to make 1100L dumpsters available to residents in high-rise flats and apartments throughout Birmingham to increase recycling capacity; and further call upon the council to ensure investment is made in new technologies so to upgrade recycling refuse trucks and accommodate for the collection of 1100L recycling bins.

Currently, waste in high rise residential blocks is collected in 240L or 360L ‘household’ blue recycling bins. This significantly impacts upon local resident’s ability to recycle a greater quantity of waste, due to fact that these smaller bins occupy more space, and accommodate for less waste than the 1100L dumpsters. Moreover, the disposal of waste in larger containers will not be attainable in Birmingham as long as the fleet of vehicles used by our recycling crews remain unmodified, and unable to collect dumpsters.

As Birmingham is legally obliged to meet a recycling target of 70% of all household waste by 2030, we believe that investment in the measures as described above will make this target more attainable, and we would welcome public consultation on this issue, so that a that a long term solution to this problem can be found.