Last month, we reported on the news that Norfolk County Council would be introducing a charge on DIY waste at recycling centres across Norfolk. It was an announcement that was met with different reactions. The charge came into effect on the 1st April – so what’s happened since?
Is the Charge Being Enforced?
On the day that the charges were supposed to start across the county, we’ve heard that the Mile Cross Recycling Centre at Swanton Road wasn’t even enforcing the charges. A colleague who works at the company responsible for our website was disposing of a kitchen cabinet composed of timber and flat glass – she wasn’t charged and, as far as she could see, nobody was.
We spoke to the Norfolk County Council and they insisted that the charge was in full effect from 1st April and that a charge of £3 should have been levied for disposing of this kind of waste. The information on the County Council website is a little confusing:
“We only accept card payment for amounts over £10. For amounts under £10 we’ll accept cash, except at Mile Cross where we only accept card payments.”
Does this mean that at Mile Cross you have to have £10 worth of DIY waste in order to dispose of it? Is less than £10 worth free to dispose of? Do they take card payments for less than £10? Any of these interpretations would seem possible from the wording. When we attempted to get clarification from Norfolk County Council, we were told that it definitely wasn’t free but they couldn’t tell us for definite how to interpret this ambiguous phrasing.
We’d also like to know why the rest of Norfolk’s Council recycling centres aren’t accepting card payments for less than £10. These sort of minimum payment requirements are less common than they once were – most large organisations will accept card payments for any amount.
What Exactly Is the Charge?
The new charge has replaced the old scheme where there was a one item concession for residential DIY waste. The prices charged for the DIY waste at county recycling centres are advertised as follows:
• Rubble: £3 per 80-litre bag.
• Unsorted/non-recyclable DIY waste: £5
• Flat glass: £5 (classed as non-recyclable at Mile Cross Recycling Centre)
• Plasterboard: £9 (£15 at Mile Cross Recycling Centre)
• Timber: £3
For large DIY jobs, such as a kitchen or bathroom refurbishment, hiring a skip to dispose of your DIY waste may work out at a similar cost – or even cheaper! And of course, we’ll collect it from your property.
We can dispose of pretty much any kind of waste, and DIY waste is among the most common type of waste we collect in our skips. The waste we collect is taken to our own recycling centre where we separate and sort it into different set containers. Over 90% of the waste we collect is recycled.
Want to save the hassle of transporting all of your waste to the tip? We can help, call us on 01493 668118 or email us on info@wtskiphire.co.uk.
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