Instructions on how to recycle cooking oil are now on the City Council’s website along with other helpful recycling tips.

If there’s one thing everyone should know about throwing away cooking oil, it’s that you should never pour it down the sink, or down drains. Even if you break down the oil with soap and hot water, it can re-solidify and cause drain pipes and sewers to get blocked. It can also travel get into rivers and lakes causing oxygen levels to drop, which can suffocate wildlife.

Now the solution for Oxford residents is at hand – and it couldn’t be simpler – recycle it!

All you need to do is put your cooking oil in a plastic bottle that will fit in your food caddy or red bin. That could be a water bottle or a plastic oil bottle.

Our new service will take the oil away along with your food waste to be anaerobically digested at the recycling plant at Cassington. There the plastic is removed, and the resulting process produces biogas to generate electricity and fertiliser for local farms.

Residents have asked us why bins are sometimes missed and we have received the following information from the City Council.

Their instructions to crews are as follows:

• If the road access is restricted the rounds should try again later in the day
• If the container is not presented where is should be presented at curtilage, the crew should log the bin as not presented.
• If the containers are accessible but parked cars prevent safe egress between the cars they should be logged as no access due to parked cars, whether that be from the resident or other parked vehicles. 
• In all cases the crews are expected to undertake dynamic risk assessments during the round and all containers should be presented correctly and safe access to collect and return will be a factor to the collection crews.

Please note that in some tight roads such as Gardiner Street, inconsiderate parking in front of bins may result in neighbours not having their bins collected (see third bullet point above, highlighted) so please take care when parking on road at bin collection periods.

Here is the press release from the County Council about the rise in charges with effect from 1st October.

There will be an additional facility for recycling hard plastics.

Fly-tipping and waste/recycling collection are managed by the City Council in our area, but the County Council runs Redbridge.

From Bank Holiday Saturday banners and leaflets  will be on site at all seven of our HWRCs, informing local residents that there will be a change in non-household waste charges from the 1^st October. We will also be raising awareness via social media and will be issuing a press release w.c. 28^th August.

The existing DIY 1,2,3 for free scheme is being replaced by a small fixed fee per item of £1.50 for non-household waste from the 1^st October. Tyres and plasterboard will also be charged for at an affordable rate. The existing scheme has been in place for 15 years and during this time there we have not increased the charge of £1 per item.

The council is not obliged to provide residents with a disposal site for non-household waste. However, in the HWRC public consultation carried out in summer 2016, 91% of responses indicated that residents would prefer to pay to deposit non-household waste as a way of saving money and protecting other council services.

Soil, rubble, hard-core, plasterboard (gypsum) other DIY type items are classified as construction waste, not household waste, and are expensive for the council to dispose of. We recognise that many householders carry out small DIY projects from time to time, and by applying a small charge this allows HWRCs to continue accepting these discretionary types of non-household waste.

Non-household or DIY items, as a general rule are materials created from the construction, demolition, alteration or repair of a home or garden. For example a sink, bath, kitchen unit, fence panel, bag of rubble etc. 

Residents can still dispose of all their household waste free of charge at any of the county’s HWRCs.

Also new in October 2017 will be a bin for recycling hard plastics. After a successful trial at Dix and Alkerton HWRCs, items such as plastic garden furniture and children’s toys will be collected and recycled from all sites.

You may want to remind residents in your area that all HWRCs are open until 8pm on Thursdays throughout the summer until 1 October 2017. We are encouraging people via social media to beat the bank holiday weekend queue by visiting their local site on a Thursday instead. 

More information about the changes is available online at www.oxfordshire.gov.uk/chargeablewaste.