Exeter trade waste scheme could boost recycling by 25%

If approved by the executive on September 18, a six-month pilot scheme, beginning in October, will see paper and cardboard from business customers collected for a fixed fee of £3 a week. The council will hire a small caged vehicle and two temporary staff members to collect the material.

Customers will leave the paper and cardboard in branded clear sacks or tied up in branded tape, provided by the council, and the crew will make collections four days a week, from Monday to Thursday. An additional collection can be made on Friday for customers who require it and this will cost an extra £3.

Councillor Connel Boyle, lead councillor for environment, said: “Every year we collect around 4,000 tonnes of mixed trade refuse, which gets sent to landfill. It is estimated that 1,000 tonnes, roughly a quarter of the total, could be recycled.”

There around 1,200 business customers who presently pay for a trade waste refuse collection and council waste officers estimate that if a third of these take up the recycling service, it will make the scheme cost-neutral. If half of them take it up, it could generate £32,000 a year.

LATS

As the council collects the city's trade waste, rather than a private commercial company, it counts as municipal waste and falls under the Landfill Allowance Trading Scheme, so the council said it is taking action to avoid being hit by fines of £150 for every tonne of material landfilled above its set allowance.

It is also in line with the new waste strategy for England which actively encouraged councils to tackle business waste alongside municipal waste (see letsrecycle.com story).

If the trial proves successful, the council will either purchase its own single vehicle or two smaller vehicles. It will also consider increasing the number of recyclables it collects to include plastics, cans and glass. This material would be commingled and sorted at the council's materials recycling facility in Exton Road.

The council has not detailed in its proposal where the waste business paper would be taken to for reprocessing, however, most household waste paper collected in Exeter is taken to paper recycler Aylesford Newsprint in Kent.

The plans were drawn up in consultation with Exeter Chamber of Commmerce. Chairman Derek Philips said: “Businesses in the city want to do their bit to help the environment and have found it frustrating not being able to recycle more of their waste. We have been closely involved in shaping the new service and we are sure it will be a great success.”