The borough has spent 1.8 million on the weekly door-to-door collection service for 40% of the borough's 95,000 households. Residents are being given large plastic baskets from Straight Recycling, for paper, cans, textiles, cardboard, plastic bottles, plastic bags, aluminium foil, clothes and shoes.
There is also a lidded container for organic waste, including kitchen waste, and a black bag collection for refuse. The new system sees all collections occurring on the same day once a week, with the intention of simplifying the process for residents.
Daniel Kingsley, door-to-door recycling manager for the borough, said: “We are the first in the country to offer a mixed multi-material and organic door-to-door collection in one vehicle on the same day as refuse collection.”
The borough's recycling rate for 2002-03 was 11.7% and it has targets of 18% for 2003-04 and 30% for 2005-06. Mr Kingsley said that through the borough-wide expansion of the new multi-material collections, he is confident that the council will meet its targets. He said: “The scheme will go borough-wide by the end of this year and which will mean collecting a total of 25,000 tonnes of recyclable material a year.”
Despite being a mixed multi-material collection, Mr Kingsley said that there has been little contamination. The materials are taken to the Grosvenor Waste material recycling facility in Crayford, Kent, to be separated. The paper goes to Newport Paper, a paper broker who is working in partnership with the council in this new scheme and ships the paper to Belgium.
The other materials are staying in the UK. The plastic is going to Delleve, the steel cans to AMG, the aluminium cans to Alcan and the textiles to LM Barry. The collected kitchen waste is governed by the Animal By-Products Regulation and so must be treated in an in-vessel compost facility.
Mr Kingsley said: “Because the kerbside-collected organic waste includes kitchen waste it has been going for in-vessel composting out near Ipswich since the contract started on the 1st of April. But the green waste at our CA sites is garden waste so that goes for normal composting.”
The council has so far invested in five twin pack Dennis Eagle collection vehicles with two compartments for the new multi-material and organic collection. The council will also be taking delivery of six more of the multi-compartmental vehicles dedicated to recycling, one a month starting in August, which are specifically for the borough-wide expansion of the scheme. The residual waste is collected in separate refuse trucks.
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