Wakefield Council has agreed to move to fully co-mingled recycling collections in 2015, after council officers found that separate collections were neither economically nor environmentally practicable.

Currently, the council collects residual waste and recyclables on a fortnightly basis, with paper and cardboard collected in a wheeled-bin, and glass, plastic bottles and metals in a recycling box.

According to the UK’s transposition of the EU’s revised Waste Framework Directive (the Waste Regulations (Amendment) 2012), by 1 January 2015, every waste collection authority in England and Wales must have in place separate collections for waste paper, metal, plastic and glass when they are necessary to ‘facilitate or improve recovery’ and are ‘technically, environmentally, or economically practicable’ (TEEP).

While the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (Defra) has said there is not “a need to issue further guidance” on the practicalities of deciding TEEP, the government-funded Waste & Resources Action Programme (WRAP) launched a non-statutory ‘route map’ for local authorities in April to help assess compliance with the regulations.

By using WRAP’s route map, Wakefield Council undertook a TEEP assessment earlier this year to determine whether separate collections would be practicable.

Economic test

The council found that whilst separate collections of paper, glass, metal, and plastic are necessary to improve recovery (as they would deliver an improved quality of recyclate when compared to current and co-mingled collections) and are technically practical (because ‘separate collection has been demonstrated regionally and nationally, recovery markets exist and health and safety considerations can be accounted for’), they would not be economically or environmentally practicable.

The council states by analysing ‘all necessary financial information’ (such as the cost of collection vehicles, recyclate income, staff, etc) – and not just the cost of collecting each material – separate collections would annually cost the council £9,615,838, with a one-off implementation cost of £266,472.

As co-mingled collections would annually cost the council £6,886,325, with a one-off cost of £252,237, it was found that the change would be prohibitively expensive, and ‘given Council budget pressures these additional annual costs may not be considered reasonable’. The council also undertook a cost analysis of its current twin-stream arrangement, which it argued would also cost more than fully co-mingled collections, costing the council £8,430,491 a year, thus also being ‘prohibitively expensive’.

Environment test

In regards to environmental practicability, the council assessed the impact of pollutant concentrations measured in terms of environmental damage and the cost/savings attributed to this damage, based on government’s Air Quality Damage Calculator.

It found that, compared to the current system, introducing fortnightly separate collections with weekly residual waste collections would cost the council £651,000, while fortnightly separate collections with fortnightly residual waste collections would cost £538,000.

Co-mingled collections reportedly had the lowest environmental impact (mainly due to the fact that there would be fewer collection rounds, thus lower carbon emissions), with fortnightly co-mingled collections and weekly residual waste collections having an environmental damage cost of £81,000.

On the flip side, co-mingled collections with fortnightly residual waste collections would actually save money, reducing the council’s current environmental costs by £31,000.

‘3 Stream Collection Service’ to roll out in ‘spring 2015’

As such, the council argued that ‘the separate collection scenario would significantly worsen the council’s current environmental performance and prohibit further improvements in environmental performance that would be derived from a [co-mingled] service’. It added that this reduction of environmental performance would not be ‘proportionate to the environmental benefits of recycling’.

In conclusion, on Tuesday (2 December), the council’s cabinet agreed to introduce a ‘3 Stream Collection Service’, comprising:

• fortnightly wheeled bin collections for residual waste;
• fortnightly wheeled bin collection for paper, cardboard glass, plastic bottles and metals, cans and tins (mixed dry recyclables);
• fortnightly wheeled bin collection for garden waste (between March and November); and
• trade waste collection services ‘bespoke to customer requirements together with the option of a mixed dry recyclables collection’.

The decision has also partly been swayed by the fact that the council’s 25-year waste contract with Shanks involves the construction of new waste treatment facilities, comprising: a mechanical treatment plant for residual waste; a materials recovery facility for co-mingled recyclables; an autoclave and anaerobic digester for organic waste; and a composting facility for green waste.

As such, the facility – set to come online in ‘spring 2015’ – requires dry recyclables to be mixed (and the Waste Regulations do not allow for separately-collected recyclables to be mixed once separated).

Wakefield Council has said that this collection offering will:

• demonstrate compliance with the waste hierarchy and the Waste Regulations ‘owing to the outcome of the TEEP assessment’;
• increase the quantity of materials recycled (but not the quality of materials collected);
• save carbon and reduce environmental damage ‘owing to the reduction in vehicle movements’; and
• deliver the baseline collection service as set out in the waste management contract.

Writing on its website, Wakefield Council outlined that it would be sending residents a letter ‘early next year’ detailing the collection changes set for spring 2015 that will ‘make it easier to recycle’.

Earlier this year, Epping Forest District Council also announced that it would be collecting recyclables from householders in a twin-stream, co-mingled service, after waste management company Biffa found that the system passed its TEEP test.

Some councils, however, appear to be misunderstanding the TEEP requirements. The Waste Regulations state that every waste collection authority must ensure that collections of paper, metal, plastic or glass are separate or show that they are not TEEP, rather than choosing the ‘best’ TEEP solution. In October of this year, Cardiff City Council, for example, announced that it believed the regulations required ‘robust, evidence-based defence to demonstrate that the current collection methods used can achieve high quality recycling, whilst also being the best technical, environmental and economically practicable solution (TEEP).’

Find out more about Wakefield Council’s TEEP test or Shanks’s waste facilities in South Kirkby.