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• Why change?

Why change to the new recycling and waste services?

The UK is now subject to EU legislation and waste targets which of course translate down to local authority waste targets. The aims of these are to view waste as a resource and reduce the emissions of greenhouse gases from waste. For biodegradable waste, fines have been implemented through the Landfill Allowance Trading Scheme (LATS) and a fine is imposed for every tonne of biodegradable waste sent to landfill in excess of a local authority's allocated allowance.

If Torbay does not change the way waste is managed in the Bay, it would face fines of around £27 million by the year 2020, as stated in the Municipal Waste Management Strategy for Torbay 2008 – 2025.

Torbay must improve its performance against its recycling and composting targets and reduce the amount of waste it sends to landfill, to minimise the impact on the environment and climate change and to avoid heavy financial penalties.

Torbay cannot continue with its present systems of waste collection and disposal as these are unsustainable, do not allow Torbay to hit its key waste and recycling targets and are unaffordable. Torbay needs new and improved recycling and waste services to ensure it can keep up with other local areas that already have them and are successfully achieving higher recycling rates.

The proposed source separated waste management solution for recyclable materials to be introduced in Torbay will produce higher quality and purer materials, which will result in an anticipated revenue gain of about £1 million a year, due to the superior quality of material and hence the higher price that this system can deliver.