Viridor Christmas recycling film

Site staff at waste management company Viridor have made a short Christmas-themed film to promote recycling in West Sussex.

Featuring a community choir singing its take on ‘The 12 Days of Christmas’, (with lines such as ‘On the first day of Christmas West Sussex recycled for me … an Alan Partridge DVD’), the film aims to encourage residents to use their local household waste recycling sites over Christmas.

Viridor’s Education and Customer Relations Manager, Jen Hake said: “We really want to make recycling as easy as possible for people each and every day and especially at Christmas. This year our site staff have truly embraced the Christmas spirit by making this short, fun film about recycling over the festive season to highlight some of the more unusual everyday household items our sites will accept for recycling.”

Watch Viridor’s rendition of ‘The 12 days of Christmas’.

Wiltshire’s first MBT reaches completion

Work on Wiltshire’s first mechanical biological treatment (MBT) plant has reached completion after two and a half years.

Run by Hills Waste Solutions as part of its 25-year waste contract with Wiltshire Council, the Northacre Resource Recovery Centre (RRC) in Westbury has been issued with a completion certificate and will now move into normal day-to-day operations.

Around 60,000 tonnes of the county’s household waste will be processed at the site per year and turned into approximately 28,200 tonnes of solid recovered fuel (SRF) instead of being sent to landfill.

Mike Webster, Group Director for Hills Waste Solutions, said: “We have reached a significant milestone in Wiltshire’s overall waste management strategy. The Northacre RRC provides a long-term solution for waste by diverting material away from landfill, extracting recyclables from it and then creating a valuable fuel source.”

Find out more about the Northacre Resource Recovery Centre.

Liz Goodwin awarded honour

Dr Liz Goodwin (pictured far right), WRAP’s Chief Executive, has been awarded an Honorary Fellowship of the Society for the Environment.

Dr Alan Knight OBE, a member of WRAP’s Board, also received an Honorary Fellowship of the Society at the Ceremony.

Goodwin’s citation stated: ‘[Goodwin’s] leadership has brought about effective engagement with major companies, including retailers and their suppliers, stressing in particular the business case for packaging and food waste reductions…

‘She continues to develop WRAP’s role as a catalyst for change, enabling an increasing range of stakeholders to address new and existing challenges and to find innovative solutions.’

Commenting on the award, Goodwin said she was “immensely proud” of WRAP’s work to make it possible for us all to make more sustainable use of resources.

Read more about the Society for the Environment.

Croydon fly-tipping crackdown

Croydon Council has invested £100,000 to trial ‘creative ways’ of dealing with fly-tipping.

Increased enforcement patrols, new CCTV cameras, clearer signs, new bins and security gates, and visits to local businesses are all part of the new package of measures.

The sites chosen for the trials include neighbourhood recycling sites, small shopping parades, private service roads and residential streets.

Councillor Phil Thomas, cabinet member for highways and environmental services, said: “Fly-tipping has a high cost, both in terms of its being a drain on local taxpayers and its environmental impact. The council has to clean up thousands of incidents every year and this has to stop. When it does happen it’s those responsible who should be the ones who are have to pay. “

Read more about waste management in Croydon.

VEKA Recycling invests in Kent site

PVC recycling company VEKA Recycling has announced that it has invested almost £1 million in its Kent facility to ‘produce high-quality recyclate suitable for a wide range of new PVC-U extruded products’.

The money has been used to install a new compounding line to ‘supply UK and European markets with PVC-U pellet derived from post-industrial or post-consumer window frame material’.

Tony Cattini, Managing Director of VEKA Recycling, said the investment will “help to meet continuing demand for recycled content in new products”, adding: “We have a new string to our bow now we can supply directly from our UK factory, offering a quality and consistent supply to manufacturers… With our new push into the extrusion market, we can now offer a closed-loop solution in our home market.”

Read more about VEKA Recycling.