The future of waste management in Hounslow
Earlier this year, councillors debated the borough’s future waste collection services, with a focus on ‘more, and easier’.
The options considered included an increase in kerbside recycling services to cover more materials including some plastic and kitchen waste, and making the garden waste service easier to use.
There was also support for all services to remain weekly, and ideally collected on the same day.
The report outlines the current waste management arrangements in Hounslow and sets out the issues that will affect how we handle municipal waste in the future.
In the year 2005/06, residents managed to recycle nearly 19% of their waste through the green box kerbside collection scheme, green garden waste collection service, our recycling banks around the borough and at Space Waye, Re-use and Recycling Centre.
That's nearly 20,000 tonnes of recycling and composting!
Recycling saves raw materials like wood and water for making paper. It also saves energy; it takes 95% less energy to recycle an aluminium can than to make a new one.
All waste that is not recycled is either incinerated (releasing toxic fumes into the air) or sent to a landfill site (which causes environmental damage and contaminates land). It also saves money, as the cost of waste disposal to landfill rises every year.
Any waste that is not recycled is sent by train to be buried in a landfill site in the Home Counties outside London - quite simply a very big hole, where all waste is buried underground.
This is a real waste of resources and energy, as anything taken to a Landfill site cannot be used again. To try and tackle this over the next few years the council has its own strategy, which feeds into various other local and national strategies.
The council has its own waste strategy to look at how to reduce waste in the borough and ensure more waste will be recycled in the future. You can download this strategy on the right.
This strategy covers the West London Waste Authority area, encompassing the boroughs of:
Brent
Ealing
Harrow
Hillingdon
Hounslow
Richmond upon Thames
The West London Waste Authority (WLWA) and constituent boroughs must produce a strategy by law.
The purpose of this is to set out how the authorities intend to manage municipal solid waste arisings between 2005 and 2020.The strategy should, in simple terms, answer three questions:
Where are we now?
Where do we want to be and when?
How do we get there?
This document provides a summary of the authority’s policies with regard to the strategy and is supported by a number of annexes and technical reports which explain how and why these policies have been formulated and how they will be implemented. Together, they form West London’s Strategy.
Contact us
Recycling Team
Street Management & Public Protection
Civic Centre
Lampton Road
Hounslow
TW3 4DN
Tel: 020 8583 5555
Fax: 020 8583 5134
E-mail: recycling@hounslow.gov.uk