Belfast: ‘Litter tourists’ driving to Belfast recycling stations cost taxpayers £200,000

Green Party councilor Anthony Flynn said recycling centers in Belfast have seen a huge increase in waste coming from other council areas in recent months, at great cost to the city’s taxpayers.

Anecdotal evidence suggests that residents from areas such as Holywood in North Down have come to East Belfast in significant numbers to use household recycling centers in that part of the city.

This month, officials at nearby Ards and North Down Borough Council said their local authority has saved over £1m in landfill costs over the last year since introducing new stricter access to its household recycling centres.

In September 2023, access to HRCs in Ards and North Down moved online in a council bid to crack down on “litter tourism” by residents in neighboring borough areas.

Councilors there agreed to introduce a new online booking system for access to its nine recycling centres, with access only possible via a pre-booked space.

The change met with some opposition from local residents, with a petition on campaign website Change.org opposing the rules receiving thousands of signatures.

From June 2023 to June 2024, Ards and North Down Borough Council saved £1,059,578 in landfill charges and taxes compared to the base reporting year 2021-22.

Savings of around £100,000 were also made in landfill transport costs.

At the same time, an additional 1,300 tonnes of residual/non-recyclable waste has been accepted at Belfast’s recycling sites over the last year on record, with an estimated additional cost of handling and processing of £194,000.

Significant increases were noted at the Palmerston Road recycling center in east Belfast – which is not far from the Holywood centre, run by Ards and North Down Borough Council.

Green councilor Anthony Flynn said: “Belfast taxpayers are being left in the outrageous position of paying almost £200,000 extra in costs to dispose of residual waste from other council areas, both domestic and commercial.

“This is due to Belfast City Council’s lack of up-to-date waste acceptance criteria and no overall waste strategy from Stormont or joint thinking across council areas.

“All the councils around Belfast have much stricter waste acceptance criteria, including online booking systems. This has resulted in a huge increase in residual waste at some of Belfast’s household recycling centres.

“To address this issue I have requested a workshop for Belfast councilors and civil servants to look at this issue. We will also invite representatives from Ards and North Down and Lisburn City and Castlereagh Council to share their experiences and help Belfast to come up with solutions.

“We need to look at the positives these other councils have seen from their change in policy as well as the negatives and come up with solutions that would both be of greatest benefit to Belfast’s taxpayer and have a minimal impact on our staff at the HRCs.”

Belfast council officials wrote in the People and Communities December report: “During 2023/24 the (waste) service noted an overall downward trend in the recycling rates achieved by the council’s household waste recycling centres.

“Anecdotal evidence suggested that neighboring councils had robust access and waste acceptance policies in place at their recycling centres, which may have resulted in some residents either returning to their own council area to deposit waste, or indeed using alternative facilities which are comparatively lacking access and acceptance policies.

“Essentially, the sector may witness a shift in the location of waste disposal across municipal boundaries.”

They add: “An investigation into the backlog since the introduction of Ards and North Down Borough Council’s online booking system indicates an increase of 12% rather than the six per cent annual figure which covers the first five months of the year when there is no such booking system. was in place.

“In addition, while the increase across all sites is 12%, there are significant increases, particularly at Palmerston HWRC, which is close to the Holywood CA site operated by ANDBC.”

They state: “This growth rate for residual waste at the sites is strong and has undoubtedly played a significant role in the drop in the overall recycling percentage at the centres.

“Applying the growth rate for these seven months to the full year and adjusting for the normal overall waste growth rate (plus 1.5%) gives a scenario of an additional 1,300 tonnes of residual waste/non-recyclable waste being accepted at council sites over the course of a year , with an estimated additional handling and treatment cost of £194,000.”

The report adds: “A further analysis of the van booking system for the period January to March 2024 was carried out.

“The aim was to identify usage patterns which would be significantly greater than the average household and which may identify opportunistic individuals or organizations who use the recycling centers to dispose of their commercial waste, thereby avoiding paying for its disposal, but rather to put this burden on Belfast rate payers.

“During this three-month period, 156 accounts made 6,868 bookings. These 156 accounts represented about 56% of the total bookings. The range in the number of bookings was 14-246.

“Of these 156 accounts, the average number of bookings over this 13 week period was 44 times. These figures suggest that the lack of formal waste acceptance policies may leave the recycling centers vulnerable to commercial waste misuse.”