Household Waste - Collection

Domestic Refuse

The Council has a statutory duty to collect normal domestic refuse from over 61,000 properties in the Torbay area. This amounts to over 3 million collections per year. The service costs about £28 per property (dwelling) per year, 80% of which is financed by Central Government with the balance of £5.65 per annum being paid through the Council Tax, this equates to around 11p per week for collection.

In order to recycle as much material from domestic collections as possible, the Council now has 38,250 properties on its twin bin scheme, with up to another 1,000 properties planned for the future. The Council has recognised that up to 15,000 of the remaining properties are not suited to the twin-bin scheme because of access and storage problems and these will remain on the present weekly bin/sack collection system.

However, alternative types of recyclable kerbside collections will be trialled during the coming year at these properties in order to enable these residents to recycle from their own homes in the near future.  At the same time it is planned to issue the re-usable seagull proof bags that were so successful in Brixham last year, to almost all of the properties that are not able to make use of the twin bin scheme.  In this way it is hoped that much of the litter that is created at present by birds and animals scavenging refuse sacks, can be eliminated.  It is planned for this issue of re-usable seagull proof bags to all possible properties by the end of March 2005.

Waste Disposal

As the Waste Disposal Authority (WDA), Torbay has the duty to arrange for the disposal of all waste collected by itself as the Waste Collection Authority (WCA). It also has to provide civic amenity facilities where persons resident in its area may bring their household waste.

Types of household wastes requiring disposal include litter bin, fly tipped and street sweeping wastes in addition to the domestic refuse arising from normal refuse collections. The total quantity of household waste generated within Torbay during 2003/2004 was approximately 62505 tonnes of which 12935 tonnes was recycled (20.69%).

For further information on household waste and collections please contact Refuse and Street Cleansing using the details above.