CONCERNS have been raised over a potential changes to household hazardous waste disposal.

North Yorkshire County Council (NYCC) is seeking the views of residents about how hazardous waste collection services should be provided in the future.

At present, the NYCC provides a home collection service for people who have hazardous waste, such as white spirit, some paints and paint cleaners, weed killers and pesticide, brake fluid and anti-freeze.

“We introduced this service more than 10 years ago to ensure residents had a safe and secure way of disposing of domestic hazardous wastes,” said County Cllr Andrew Lee.

“The time is right now to look at other ways of providing a service so that we can ensure residents are still able to dispose of hazardous waste safely, but also to make sure we do so in the most cost-efficient way.”

The consultation asks questions around a number of potential options for future hazardous waste collection and disposal services, including accepting the wastes at the county’s household waste recycling centres; charging for home collection services for some or all types of hazardous waste; or ceasing to provide a home collection service for some or all types of hazardous waste.

However, members of Norton Town Council said they were concerned that any changes would lead to an increase in fly-tipping which was already a problem in many areas.

Cllr David Lloyd-Williams said: “I feel we should express our strong concerns to the introduction of any changes as there have been effects to the previous changes introduced at household waste recycling centres and changes to hazardous waste disposal will lead from one thing to another.”

Cllr Hugh Spencer said: “When changes to the household waste centres were first introduced we expressed our concerns that it would lead to an explosion of fly-tipping and it has.”

The consultation can completed online at northyorks.gov.uk/hhwconsultation

Alternative format versions are available on request from the NYCC’s customer service centre on 01609 780780 or by emailing customer.services@northyorks.gov.uk