North Yorkshire Council: New Dry Recycling Service Supported by Public Consultation

Problem

Having agreed a ‘transitional provision’ with the Government that allowed the introduction of weekly food waste collections to be delayed, the priority for the new council was harmonising dry recycling collections. In the lead-up to reorganisation, WRAP was asked to support a working group of county and district officers by assessing the available options and present the findings to elected members as part of the new authority’s decision-making process.  

Despite its separate status, the City of York was invited to participate in the project because of its shared arrangements with North Yorkshire for the disposal and processing of residual and recyclable waste.  

With almost 400,000 households between them, and over 80,000 tonnes of dry recycling collected in 2023/24, changing existing collection arrangements would have a significant impact on both the cost of service delivery and recycling performance.

Solution

On behalf of the new authority, WRAP specialist consultants assessed the cost and performance of an agreed suite of collection scenarios.  

Five core scenarios (plus six ‘variants’ of these) that reflected the existing range of recycling collections delivered across North Yorkshire were modelled to provide officers with a comprehensive, 360° view of their options.  

Whilst the City of York would continue to deliver its services separately, understanding how these could be aligned with a harmonised North Yorkshire service added value to the project.

Key findings: 

• The modelling established that a two-stream recycling collection, with paper and card collected separately from plastics, cans and glass would provide the council with the most cost effective and operationally efficient solution.
• Despite the significant capital investment required for a two-stream collection (mainly in the form of additional containers), this was off-set by projected annual savings resulting from reduced operational costs.  
• A further stage of modelling looked at the impact of adding a future weekly food waste collection (whilst acknowledging the ‘transitional provision’). Given the size and rurality of much of North Yorkshire, separately collecting food waste was found to increase revenue costs, although these could be reduced by restricting residual waste by either reducing capacity or frequency of collections.

WRAP’s local authority support team joined officers to present the project’s findings to elected members at a specially convened workshop of their ‘Waste Harmonisation Task and Finish Group’. The workshop enabled members to consider the findings in detail, the wider implications of changing existing services, and how that change could be made to work for North Yorkshire’s 300,000 households.

Impact

WRAP’s support provided officers and members with the information they needed to be able present a proposal for a new county-wide two-stream recycling collection service for public consultation.  

With over 10,000 responses, the highest number ever received by the council, the ‘Let’s talk rubbish’ consultation demonstrated the level of public interest in the proposal to change the waste service.  

As part of the consultation, the Council asked: ‘what do you think about our idea to improve recycling services in North Yorkshire?’.  With over 50% of respondents positive, and less than a third opposing it, the results of the consultation exercise, along with feedback from subsequent public engagements, enabled the council in January 2025 to finally approve the proposal to roll-out a new two-stream (separate paper and card) dry recycling collection across North Yorkshire.

From start to finish, the whole process of assessing, identifying and approving the new harmonised recycling collection service took the best part of 3 years. Whilst undoubtedly a long time, it ensured that each option was thoroughly examined, and members fully engaged in agreeing the preferred solution that aligned with the Government’s ‘Simpler Recycling’ default requirement announced in November 2024.

WRAP’s expertise and experience of advising local authorities on service change was invaluable to the North Yorkshire & City of York councils. From appointing and managing the environmental consultants, seeking resolution of queries throughout the modelling process, to consolidating complex and large-scale modelling information in a simple, step-by-step report.

The report was central to setting out the preferred twin stream recycling service to residents, officers and members, and for North Yorkshire Council to make significant capital investment in waste containers in order to implement an efficient and effective recycling service.

Peter Jeffreys, Head of Service at North Yorkshire Council