Carmarthenshire row sees recyclables sent to landfill

LAS Waste of Lampeter has pulled out of a contract to take recyclable waste from pink bag collections saying that it had not been paid for months. As a result, council-owned waste management company CWM Environmental was forced to send materials to landfill that had been separated by householders for recycling.

” We have to comply with Environment Agency requirements, so all bags collected on August 4 and 5 have been sent to landfill.“
– CWM Environmental
The two companies are now consulting with solicitors.

A spokeswoman for CWM said: “We have to comply with Environment Agency requirements, so all bags collected on August 4 and 5 have been sent to landfill. We were given a very short notice and we needed to ensure that our residents were not inconvenienced.”

CWM is responsible for taking black bag residual waste sacks from Carmarthenshire households along with the pink recycling bags. The pink bags had been passed to LAS for sorting and for sale of recyclables to reprocessors.

Landfill
LAS Waste claims it has not been paid by the council since November, and as a result of the disagreement pulled out of the contract. Following the termination of the contract, CWM has had to landfill some pink bags before a new arrangement comes into place this week.

“From Monday arrangements have been set up to deal with the collected recyclables,” the CWM spokesperson said.

According to LAS Waste, residents are now demanding to know why the pink bags are being sent to landfill. Tina Saunders, development manager at LAS Waste, said: “We have had phone calls from residents asking why we are sending pink sacks to landfill. But it has nothing to do with us now, we are out of the picture.”

LAS has now moved to clarify this position locally, and has claimed it offered Carmarthenshire the option of sending its pink bags directly to LAS Waste – paying them directly – rather than going through CWM.

“This offer has been on the table for over a month now,” said Ms Saunders. “We haven't received any word back from them yet with regards to this option.”

Carmarthenshire has three different kerbside collection services, which operate in different areas of the county – a pink bag scheme, a brown bag scheme and a blue box scheme.