The London local authority, which runs in-house weekly green waste collections, has reported that it has reduced the amount of contaminated green waste it sends to landfill to below 10%.
However, the council admitted that 60% of the green waste it collected was being sent to landfill in January – incurring annual disposal costs of 47,600.
A spokesperson for Harrow council said: “In January, 60% of the brown bins for composting were being rejected by the central recycling site, meaning it had to go to landfill.
“Not only was this damaging the council's efforts to follow a green agenda, it was also costing the council tens of thousands of pounds to dump the rejected waste in landfill sites,” he added.
Inspected
At the Harefield composting site, run by West London Composting company, where Harrow's green waste is sent, a spokeswoman explained that all loads were visually inspected after they came over the weighbridge and the site could only tolerate a 5% contamination rate.
She said: “Contamination slows down the composting process as it has to be removed by hand. If the loads are rejected it costs everybody money and the objective is to compost as much as possible. The material is inspected and if it is deemed to have more than 5% contamination it is rejected.”
Awareness
In order to turn their green waste contamination problem around, Harrow took a tougher line with some residents, who it said either did not care, or did not understand which material they should be putting in each of their bins. This involved educating residents and refusing to collect bins which were contaminated.
The council also mounted a rigorous leafleting and doorstepping campaign to raise awareness of the issue – which helped recycling rates to increase from 28% to 35% year-on-year.
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Residents who persistently and deliberately fail to recycle in Harrow already risk fines of up to 1,000. (see letsrecycle.com story)
Councillor Susan Hall, Harrow council's portfolio holder for urban living, said: “Government targets on recycling are getting tougher and it is vital we continue to keep the contamination rate down. By 2009, councils could be fined as much as 150 a tonne for sending waste to landfill. This could have cost us as much as 750,000 a year if we had not improved on last year's contamination figures.”
Martin Grundon, West London Composting managing director, added: “We are delighted with the dramatic and noticeable improvement in the waste.”
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