On 09 December, the council announced it was to roll out a weekly collection of WEEE at the kerbside following a successful trial (see letsrecycle.com story).
This allowed for small and handheld electrical items including kettles, speakers, microwaves and printers to be collected from neighbourhoods across the district and sent to a dedicated facility for sorting and recycling, owned by CSS in Berkshire.
Councillor Steven North, leader of East Northamptonshire council, said: “As a council, we are committed to helping residents with their recycling in the district and are delighted that there has been such a high uptake of the WEEE collection scheme in a short space of time.
“But the work doesn’t stop here, and we encourage East Northants residents to carry on putting out their unwanted electrical items for collection, so we can maintain these high figures and avoid electrical products being sent for disposal unnecessarily.”
In August 2019 around £3 million from the latest phase of the WEEE fund was made available to local authorities for initiatives aimed at boosting the recycling of small WEEE through kerbside collections (see letsrecycle.com story).
Trial
East Northamptonshire’s scheme was launched on the back of a successful trial the council ran from 23 September until 1 December in Raunds, Northamptonshire, a village with a population of around 8,500 (see letsrecycle.com story).
During the trial, approximately a tonne of small WEEE was collected and sent to the CSS facility,where material is shredded, and metals removed by magnetic and electrical currents.
Plastics are also sorted into different types by an eddy current separator, near infra-red and other technologies. The sorted material is then sent for recycling.
Collection
Residents across East Northamptonshire with unwanted small electrical items place them out for recycling on their usual collection day in a carrier bag, next to recycling or refuse bins.
Any small electrical items left out for collection are placed in a specially designed cage attached to the waste trucks.
Due to the size of the cage only small mixed WEEE can be accepted.
“We are delighted that there has been such a high uptake of the WEEE collection scheme”
East Northamptonshire
Based in Thrapston and Rushden, East Northamptonshire represents a population of 93,906 according to an estimate from mid-2018. Its waste contractor is FCC Environment
The district had a recycling rate of 45.9% for the 2018/19 financial year, fractionally higher than England’s household waste recycling rate of 45.1%.
Following a budgetary overspending crisis, there were no elections in any Northamptonshire district in 2019, and so all councillors at the Conservative-run authority had their terms of office extended until at least 2020.
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