Council overwhelmed by surge in green waste

Collections of green waste have resumed in Leeds after a spate of warm weather left the city council overwhelmed by an excess of the material.

Meanwhile, organics recyclers have acknowledged that 2013 has been a particularly bad year for green waste volumes, as extreme weather conditions have caused significant peaks and troughs in the amount of material generated.

Leeds city councils waste management department informed local councillors last month that the service was working above capacity due to residents presenting an excess of garden waste alongside their bins, on collection day.

The department advised residents to consider composting and visiting household waste and recycling centres as alternatives to collection.

However, the council has confirmed waste levels have now returned to normal following an end to the hot spell.

A spokeswoman for Leeds City Council explained that while Leeds offers a free service for the removal of garden waste, periods of good weather can put a strain on collections.

She said: During the hot weather period we experienced in late May and early June, there was an extremely high amount of garden waste that was put out for collection.

To cover the excess amounts of waste we sent recovery vehicles out to cover more collections, and advised residents if their bins had not been collected on their normal collection day that they should leave the bin out for 48 hours and the remainder waste would be collected in this time.

The levels of garden waste have now reduced again, and collections are back to normal.
The surplus collections contrast with earlier in the year, when volumes of green waste were 20-30% down due to an exceptionally cold spring (see letsrecycle story).

Extremes

Jeremy Jacobs, technical director for the Renewable Energy Associations Organics Recycling Group, warned that extremes in temperature would see the biomass waste industry experience larger peaks and troughs than in previous years.

He told letsrecycle.com: These things have a habit of balancing themselves out but this year has been particularly bad. The issue here is unpredictability: well-established seasons we are used to seem to be in disarray.

As a result, August will probably produce higher volumes than has traditionally been the case.

Meanwhile, Harry Waters, commercial director of Agrivert, which runs the 35,000 tonne-a-year capacity in-vessel composting (IVC) plant at Ardley, Oxfordshire, to service its 20-year green and food waste processing contract with Oxfordshire county council, commented on the operational challenges caused by unpredictable changes in the weather.

He told letsrecycle.com: You do tend to get these enormous fluctuations, so we always make sure we are geared up for these peaks and troughs. There may be more hot weather on the way, but no rain means no grass so there are lots of factors to consider.