This Saturday was the final catch-up collection for the waste and recycling service after Christmas. From next week bins and bags will be put out on the standard day, of Thursday for north Abingdon and Friday for south Abingdon.

There is usually a bit of a holdup to traffic as the waste and recycle lorries make their way up West St Helen Street. There is less of a holdup along Lombard Street.

In the autumn of 2017 Biffa, the current contractor for South and Vale, bought a new fleet of trucks to replace the previous fleet at a cost of £6.5m. The new purple livery shows that 80% of waste can be recycled.

In the Vale of White Horse District, where we live, the council reports that 64% of our waste was recycled in 2017.

It does not seem long ago since the Drayton Waste Recycling Centre had a big revamp, but checking back on this blog it was 2006. Time for another revamp is on the way…

Queues have never seemed as bad since that revamp, and according to the 2015 Oxfordshire consultation on the use of Waste Recycling Centres there were 1.4 million visits to sites in 2008/9 and 1. 1 million in 2014/15. Usage is going down.

Oxfordshire County Council are looking to save money, because of reduced central government funding, and this is one area they have reduced the budget, and are going to make £350,000 of savings from 2017.

They have looked at various options, and it seems that the favorite option, which they are consulting upon, is to reduce the number of recycling centres to 3 or 4, and improve the ones that remain.

Currently Abingdon is well served by Drayton to the south and Redbridge to the north. Other places are less well served as – as can be seen by the map.

The aim is to keep and expand ones near larger centres of population, and limit drive times. The consultation says keeping just three recycling centres could result in centres as follows:
* Central North Oxfordshire: This would mean that Ardley and Alkerton will close
and be replaced with a new site.
* Central Oxfordshire: This would mean that Redbridge will be expanded or
replaced
* Central South Oxfordshire: This would mean that Drayton will be expanded or
replaced

The consultation can be found at https://consultations.oxfordshire.gov.uk/consult.ti/HWRCstrategy/consultationHome. It is open for comments from 6 Aug 2015 at 00:00 to 5 Oct 2015 at 23:59.