Maidstone Borough Council 3 End of the Saturday
Freighter Service Our Saturday Freighter Service which collects household waste from 99 pick-up points around the borough once every ten weeks is to be discontinued. The last service will be on Saturday 14 May.
The service was introduced in 1991 but since then more environmentally-friendly ways to dispose of the borough’s rubbish – such as the kerbside recycling and garden waste services – have been introduced and the number of people using it has fallen dramatically.
Posters are on display at each site confirming the last collection date and giving alternative ways you can dispose of items.
These include
• Our Bulky Collection Service for larger items like TVs and furniture. It's chargeable but households on low incomes will be offered one subsidised collection a year. Prices for other residents will be frozen for the next 12 months.
• Some charities will collect goods which they can then sell to raise funds.
• Items can be taken to the Tovil Recycling Centre.
You can find out more about these alternatives by visiting
www.maidstone.gov.uk.
Only 4% per cent of residents now use the service and are effectively being subsidised by the vast majority of people who don’t. Ending the service will save £40,000 a year.
There were also other compelling reasons for ending the service; the 300 tonnes of waste a year collected by the freighter is mixed together and cannot be separated for recycling so all of it has to go to landfill and although the freighter was intended for domestic rubbish, it has often been abused by commercial organisations seeking to cut costs.
We appreciate that some people will be disappointed that the freighter service is being discontinued but we hope that they will understand that there are overwhelming reasons for doing this.
Food Waste Challenge
There’s still time to sign up to The Big Maidstone Food Waste Challenge to be in with a chance of winning a £30 gift voucher for The Mall Chequers Shopping Centre or family swimming vouchers for Maidstone Leisure Centre Maidstone. The scheme is designed to cut down on the amount of food waste thrown straight into the rubbish bin. Sign up for the challenge and promise your support at
www.maidstone.gov.uk/foodwastechallenge
or by sending your name, address and phone number by post to: The Big Maidstone Food Waste Challenge, Maidstone Borough Council, Bircholt Road, Parkwood, Maidstone ME15 9XY.
Thank you to our volunteers A series of special clean
up events took place across the borough at the beginning of March in conjunction with Keep Britain Tidy, ‘Clean for the Queen’ and ‘Love Kent, Hate Litter’. Over 300 volunteers from community groups and local schools showed their civic pride by
litter picking in areas including Tovil, Boughton Monchelsea, Downswood, Hunton, Allington, Marden and Chart Sutton. A huge thank you to everyone who gave up their time to show that they ‘Love Kent, Hate Litter’ and for helping to keep Maidstone a beautiful place to live.
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