The Authority’s waste and recycling committee has been asked to note a report which shows that its recycling rate has risen from 45.38% in 2018/19 to 47.25% in 2019/20.
One of England’s largest waste disposal authorities, the GMCA holds waste powers for nine councils in Greater Manchester (Bolton, Bury, Manchester, Oldham, Rochdale, Salford, Stockport and Tameside).
Suez took over the waste management contract for the region, valued at over £1 billion, in early 2019, and the contract commenced in June 2019 (see letsrecycle.com story).
In the first financial year since the contract begun, which includes two months of the previous deal with Viridor, total waste arisings grew by just under 20,000 tonnes to 1,091,055 tonnes.
Of this, 47.25% was recycled, and the authority achieved a diversion from landfill rate of 93.45%. This represents an increased diversion of just under 3%, as highlighted below.
The MRF contamination rate remained largely the same, falling from 18.81% to 18.53%.
Touching on why there was a “significant” rise in the rejection of collected recycling, the report says: “The tonnage of collected WCA loads materials, rejected at the reception point, was c.2kt, which is a significant year on year increase that can be largely attributed to the stringent quality controls brought about by global market changes.”
On landfill, it added: “Landfill diversion figures continue to progress in the right direction, increasing by c. 3%, with tonnage Landfilled almost 31kt lower than 2018/19 figures, achieving an overall rate of over 93%.”
HWRC access
The report also provided an update on how Household Waste and Recycling Centres (HWRCs) have coped with the coronavirus pandemic.
All GMCA HWRCs closed on 24th March in order to comply with Government guidance on essential reasons to leave the house during the initial 3 week lock down period.
After a phased re-opening, the sites are now exceeding pre-lockdown levels of demand. This is outlined below by the total number of visits.
Number plate system
A separate report which will go before the committee provided an update on the GMCA’s number plate system, which was rolled out at its HWRC network in in February 2020 (see letsrecycle.com story).
Some 20 sites across the region operate the system, which logs and records vehicles entering the site and “links the registration number to a register of the delivered loads”.
Visitors are then ranked in a traffic light system, ranging from green for users that are not flagged for investigation, to red for those identified as traders or who have exceeded the thresholds.
In the first month of operation the scheme was successful in driving trade waste out of the HWRC network, the report says, as outlined below.
“The impact of the introduction of the access policy is demonstrated by the HWRC recycling rate, which increased from 34.76% to 41.81% for the HWRC contract,” the report said.
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