A new MRF is currently being installed in the borough with 167,000 worth of money raised from packaging recovery notes and council funds. Metals recycler EMR contributed 130,000 and steel-makers Corus gave 12,000 from the PRN pot to supplement 25,000 council funds.
In addition, a DEFRA grant of 730,000 will be used to extend the kerbside collections of glass, textiles, metal and paper in the new year. This currently serves 44,000 households and will be pushed out to the whole borough when it expands to cover 20,000 more rural homes in January 2003.
Enhancing
Barry Saunders, environmental improvements manager at Chelmsford Borough Council, said: “Taking a cross-sector approach to enhancing our recycling infrastructure, with two projects that dovetail so nicely, will go a long way to help us meet our statutory recycling targets.”
The MRF, which is being built by Advanced Recycling Solutions, is due to start processing glass, textiles and metals by January 2003. The glass will be sold mainly to Berrymans, the textiles to LM Barry and recovered steel will be baled by EMR and smelted by Corus under the CanRoute scheme.
Future
EMR spokeswoman Cherry Read said: “We're delighted to be involved and we'll be looking to work on similar initiatives with local authorities in the future.”
Six thousand properties in Chelmsford currently have kerbside green waste collections. The council will roll out this service to another 5,000 homes from October 1 2002. The material collected is composted at the Cleanaway site in Pitsea, Essex. Used paper collected at the kerbside will go to Aylesford Newsprint.
Chelmsford had a recycling rate of 11.2% last year. It is hoped that the MRF and kerbside extension will help it meet its statutory target of 40% by 2004.
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