Viridor will arrange for the recycling and composting of all recyclable materials and green waste collected in the borough. But, with no facilities in the immediate area, the company will be using third-party sorting facilities for recycled materials collected on Poole's comingled kerbside service. Material might have to be transported to the London area to be processed.
Viridor will also be responsible for loading, transporting and dispose of all residual waste – from commercial and industrial sources as well as from households – which will go to the company's own landfill sites.
Peter Pawlowski, head of environmental and consumer protection services at Poole, said: “We place great store in partnership working and look forward to tackling major challenges of waste management in partnership with Viridor during the contract period.” Viridor operations director John Cardwell said the company looked forward to working to deliver the council's key waste management targets.
Residents in Poole generate about 90,000 tonnes of waste each year, which is growing at a rate of 1% each year, of which about 19% is recycled. Poole has to reach government-set targets of 33% of household waste by 2004/05 and 40% by 2005/06.
Recycling
While residual waste collections will remain weekly, the borough is introducing a new fortnightly doorstep collection of comingled dry recyclables – paper/card, cans, plastics and glass – using 140-litre blue wheeled bins for every household in the borough. This replaces the previously-used 55-litre black box system.
West Midlands firm Otto is supplying 50,000 wheeled bins. Larger, 660-litre and 1100-litre communal bins are also being introduced for flats to participate in the scheme. It is hoped that this new system will capture more recyclable material than the smaller containers, and should protect the recyclable material from the elements, and minimise the likelihood of material being rejected by reprocessors, the council believes.
Participation
The council has said the first two weeks of its collections have seen an 85% participation rate, and whereas the black box scheme had picked up about 60 tonnes per fortnight, the new scheme picked up 600 tonnes of material in the first two weeks.
Councillor Don Collier, cabinet portfolio holder for the environment, said: “To divert this tonnage away from landfill in a fortnight indicates a job very well done. To continue these figures would be incredible and make a serious impact on the tough government targets we have been set.”
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