Trio of local authority waste contracts announced

Grundon wins street sweepings contract

Grundon Waste Management has been awarded a five-year contract to treat municipal street sweepings from three counties at its new Ewelme plant in Oxfordshire.

The contract, worth an estimated £400,000, will see the firm process street sweeper waste from Gloucester county council, Mid Bedfordshire council, and all district authorities within Oxfordshire.

Under the arrangement, Grundon will treat the sweepings at its £1.3 million Oxfordshire plant, which was awarded planning permission by Oxfordshire county council in 2014 (see letsrecycle.com story).

Located at the company’s Ewelme landfill site near Wallingford, the plant has capacity to process 25,000 tonnes of road sweepings per year – extracting secondary aggregrates for use in construction.

Grundon will separate out ferrous metals and organic waste materials from the sweepings to produce aggregates of different sizes, as well as compost-like output (CLO) to be used on-site for land restoration.

Oxfordshire had been sending its street sweepings to Veolia’s Ling Hill site near Rugby, after the Environment Agency ruled in 2013 that sweepings could no longer be counted as recycling due to contaminants.

The contract, which officially commenced in April, also has options for a three-year extension in aggregate production.

A spokesman for Grundon Waste Management said: “We are pleased to have secured contracts with a number of county councils and local authorities for our new treatment and recovery facility in Ewelme. This new, state-of-the-art facility, built at a cost of £1.3 million, is one of the most technically advanced in the UK and helps councils meet their recycling targets through the recovery of all road sweeping waste, including leaves, sand and grit, and metals.”

Mid UK takes on county-wide Lincolnshire recycling

Waste firm Mid UK Ltd has been awarded an estimated £2.5 million contract to process recyclables on behalf of seven Lincolnshire district and borough councils.

The contract, which began last week (July 1), was awarded by Lincolnshire county council and will run for just under three years.

It will see Mid UK receive, haul and sort commingled dry recyclables collected across the seven councils, which are; Boston borough council; City of Lincoln council; North Kesteven council; South Holland district council; South Kesteven council; West Lindsey district council, and; East Lindsey district council.

Mid UK has processed recyclables intermittently on behalf of South Holland and South Kesteven councils over the past five years, as well as a previous contract with North Kesteven which has since expired.

Under the new contract, around 70,000 tonnes of commingled recyclables will be sent to Mid UK’s Lincolnshire-based Caythorpe and Barkston Heath materials recycling facilities (MRF) each year.

The 80,000 tonnes-per-year MRF is based in Caythorpe already processes recyclables collected from households and businesses across Lincolnshire and the East Midlands.

The Barkston Heath MRF, which came online in April 2014, was developed to handle residual material but has been specially commissioned to take the commingled recyclables in time for the local authority contract.

Commenting on the contract award, a spokesperson for Mid UK said: “We are very pleased and excited to build our relationship with the councils. It gives security to local jobs and it means we can invest in our waste and recycling treatment processes further.”

Pearce Recycling named preferred bidder for Staff Moorlands contract

Staffordshire Moorlands district council has named Hertfordshire-based Pearce Recycling as preferred bidder to process mixed recyclables.

The arrangement could see Pearce Recycling sort and process an estimated 6,000 tonnes of recyclables per year from the council.

Staffordshire Moorlands collects commingled recyclables and paper separately in-house on a fortnightly basis. The contract to process the material was previously held by Viridor. It has reported a provisional recycling figure for 2014/15 of 55.03%.

The council conducts waste and recycling activities under a strategic alliance with neighbouring High Peak borough council – but the latter local authority is not included in Pearce contract.

Based in St Albans, Pearce Recycling is traditionally renowned as a paper recycler but offers recycling services for a range of materials including cardboard, plastics, metals and wood.