County hitting recycling targets but £1m fine still hangs over council

Alec Doyle, Local Democracy Reporter

A county council still has a Welsh Government fine of more than £1 million hanging over it for missing a statutory recycling target.

That is despite Flintshire successfully transforming its waste collection services to hit the necessary 70% household rubbish recycling rate over the last 18 months.

In a report before the council’s Environment and Economy Overview and Scrutiny Committee on Tuesday, the Streetscene and Transportation department’s six-month report on waste collection services will highlight the fact that the three-weekly collection service introduced last year has had the desired effect – reducing residual waste and increasing recycling rates to 69.55%.

That performance was enough to get three infraction fines – imposed by the Welsh Government between 2021 and 2024 – worth £540,000 cancelled as a reward for achieving the national statutory target.

But the council still has a fine of £1.022m hanging over it from 2025.

The council remains hopeful that too will be wiped from its slate as it continues to build on the progress made to get to 70%.

In the report the department states: “We are yet to receive confirmation from the Cabinet Secretary for Climate Change and Rural Affairs as to whether the infraction fine will be imposed for the financial year 2024/2025.

“The Cabinet Secretary has stipulated that the council must be committed to improving its performance to achieve the statutory minimum targets, which is of fundamental importance, and the plan needs to be credible in terms of the actions proposed and the commitment from the Authority in place to deliver them.”

Comparing 2024/25 performance to 2025/25, the council collected 15% less non-recyclable – or black bin – waste as residents, adjusting to the three-weekly black bin collections, took care to recycle more.

At Household Recycling Centres the picture was even better, with 27% less residual waste disposed of there – around 1,000 tonnes less than 24/25.

The amount of material collected at the kerbside for recycling meanwhile increased by 1,000 tonnes.

The report acknowledges there have been some challenges this year however.

Amid 4.81 million scheduled collections driver shortages, reduced supervisory capacity and operational changes led to a summer spike in missed collections with  just over 7,000 missed from May-August – more than half of all missed collections so far this year.

A recovery plan implemented in July brought numbers back down and currently missed collections are running in the hundreds.

In conclusion the report said: “Overall, the evidence indicates that the service change is delivering a positive environmental outcome, supporting the objectives of the Resource and Waste Strategy with residents demonstrating greater engagement in recycling, improved waste separation, and a reduced reliance on residual waste.

“The operational changes to our domestic collection rounds demonstrated our commitment to identifying efficiencies but also exposed vulnerabilities requiring a coordinated response.”