27 recycling centres to be closed in the Staffordshire Moorlands

Staffordshire Moorlands Council is to close 27 recycling centres after private contractors attempted to increase charges to collect materials, including an extra £30,000 a year to collect paper.

Instead of taking waste paper, textiles, glass, plastic packaging and cans to the well-used bring sites across the district, residents are now asked to separate their waste, ready for kerbside collection.

A report released by the council states: ‘Initially neighbourhood recycling centres were developed as residents had few opportunities to recycle as kerbside collection services were in their infancy.

‘At the height of service provision, the district council operated over 30 sites and was actively pursuing locations for more sites.

‘In recent years a number of sites have been lost as a result of redevelopment or as private landowners have withdrawn permission to have the banks on their land.

‘All the materials collected on these sites can now be recycled through the council’s kerbside recycling collection service, which is now available to all households within the district.’

Staffordshire Moorlands is just the latest in a string of councils that have been removing bring banks lately, following similar moves from Dorset, South Oxfordshire, and North Herts.

Find out more about recycling in the Staffordshire Moorlands.

Collection deliberately mixes household and garden waste

Officials from North Lincolnshire Council have responded to footage showing the deliberate mixing of household recycling and garden waste, as well as a bin, during a waste collection in Crowle, North Lincolnshire.

The incident was filmed by a resident, prompting the council to respond in a statement saying that the number of times this has happened is ‘very low’.

The statement explained: ‘We want to make it clear that this was an extremely rare incident, but on this day we could only send out one missed bin collection vehicle which meant having to mix materials together.

‘However, we didn’t want to leave residents with full waste or recycling bins for too long past their collection day which is why this vehicle was sent out. Usually we plan to have enough missed bin collection vehicles to keep waste and recycling separate.

‘We fully appreciate residents’ efforts in separating out their recycling that last year helped North Lincolnshire achieve a recycling rate of over 50 per cent.

‘We cannot put our staff in danger and so due to health and safety reasons the refuse collectors can’t retrieve any items that have accidentally fallen into the lorry when they are out collecting.

‘Bins that fall into the collection vehicle are usually retrieved when they return to the depot.’

Find out more about recycling in North Lincolnshire.

Solid recovered fuel facility officially opened by SUEZ and CEMEX

The new Rugby solid recovered fuel (SRF) facility, officially opened today (18 September) by SUEZ and CEMEX, will supply the CEMEX Rugby Cement Plant with fuel for the next 25 years, the company says.

The £18 million SRF facility, owned and operated by SUEZ, will use residual waste from Warwickshire, Northamptonshire and areas across the Midlands to replace fossil fuel in the cement manufacturer’s kiln, which it says is the largest in the country.

The developers say the facility can process up to 300,000 tonnes of residual waste each year and around 70 per cent of the input material comes from businesses in the region, while the remaining 30 per cent is household waste, much of which originates from Northamptonshire County Council.

According to SUEZ, the SRF manufacturing process enables it to extract recyclable materials, such as plastics, card and metals that would otherwise be ‘too contaminated to viably recycle’, saving it from going to landfill.

Jean-Marc Boursier, Senior Executive Vice President of SUEZ, said: “With the 240,000 tonnes of SRF produced by this site, the group now supplies 1.1 million tonnes of SRF worldwide. This solution gives us the ability to extract recyclable materials that would otherwise have been lost, and provides CEMEX with a sustainable, long-term alternative to fossil fuel.

“This inauguration is a symbol of our commitment to the production of renewable energy fuels. Our customers can use the SRF to further develop energy reuse. The use of this energy offers numerous advantages because it is renewable, transportable, abundant and economically attractive.”

Fernando Gonzalex, Chief Executive Officer of CEMEX, added: “In our global cement operations in 2014, we had reduced our specific net CO2 emissions by around 23 per cent compared to our 1990 baseline, mainly thanks to the continuous implementation of alternative fuel use in our plants.

“More than 90 per cent of our active cement plants consume alternative fuels, with nine of them having surpassed a 50 per cent alternative fuel rate and five exceeding 65 per cent last year.”

Find out more about SUEZ and CEMEX.

Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead launches Greenredeem food waste scheme

The Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead (RBWM) and incentive scheme Greenredeem, has launched a food waste recycling initiative, encouraging local residents to recycle their food waste.

According to RBWM, 30 per cent of all material sent to landfill from the borough is food waste.

Local residents will be rewarded for their food waste recycling efforts through a points system. Point earned by providing food waste can be converted into vouchers for local and national businesses, such as the Windsor Leisure Centre,and Costa Coffee.

As well as receiving points as they recycle their food, residents will earn a bonus if the amount of food waste collected in the borough increases.

All RBWM residents will also receive a year’s supply of caddy liners and can order additional outdoor caddies to increase their food waste capacity.

Rob Crumbie, Marketing and Communications Director at Greenredeem, said: “Through Greenredeem we hope to illustrate the many possibilities for leftovers beyond the waste bin – whether it’s creating a leftover speedy stir fry, getting a home composter for the garden or recycling food waste – with a little support it’s easy for residents to reduce the amount of food wasted at home.”

Incentive schemes for recycling have been gaining in prominence through government promotion of them, though opponents say they can actually encourage people to produce more waste, and a report by Brook Lyndhurst for the Department of Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (Defra) found that improvements tend to be linked to ‘better services and promotion rather than being attributable directly to rewards’. A subsequent report by Eunomia Research and Consulting for Serco also found that their ‘value for money is unproven’, and in some cases, could actually cost more than the ‘evaluated benefits they deliver’.

Learn more about Greenredeem.

NWH acquires DJ Laing, waste management business, in Dundee

The Waste Services division of The NWH Group Ltd has today (18 September) announced its acquisition of the business and assets of DJ Laing, a waste management operations business based in Dundee.

The deal hopes to secure local jobs at the recycling operation in the Gourdie Industrial Estate as well as further strengthening NWH’s foothold in the Scottish market, currently holding facilities in Glasgow, Edinburgh and Midlothian.

According to a signed agreement, DJ Laing will transfer to NWH in October and will, for an interim period only, continue to trade as DJ Laing.

Commenting on the deal, David Laing, Managing Director of the DJ Laing Group, said: “After 40 years in business and 25 years in recycling and waste management, the DJ Laing Group welcomed the approach from NWH and sees the transfer of the Dundee site to NWH as a positive opportunity, not only to secure the jobs of our skilled, long-term workforce but it will also allow the business to expand further in waste recycling.”

Mark Williams, Managing Director of NWH Group, added: “We are delighted to have reached an agreement to purchase the Dundee operation as it fits perfectly with our strategic plans to grow our business into new geographical areas throughout Scotland.”

Learn more about the NWH Group.