The company, owned by waste disposal firm E Harper (York), is unusual because it crushes comingled recyclables in collection vehicles during kerbside collections. Many glass collection companies try to keep bottles intact so they can be sorted by colour more easily. But colour is not important if the glass is destined for use in aggregates.
Crushing
Managing director Arthur Ready claimed crushing the glass would make sorting at the new MRF easier and would enable RU Recycling to issue PRNs before selling glass for aggregates.
The MRF, due to open in February 2004, has been fitted with equipment worth 1.5 million developed by the company's sister firm Andela Products in the USA. It will have capacity to deal with up to 40,000 tonnes materials per year. Mr Ready said: “We see this as a shop window for this machinery.”
RU Recycling claims to offer kerbside collections up to 40% cheaper than rivals, thanks to the fact workers do not need to separate materials at the kerbside, and compaction vehicles can store greater weights of material.
Newspaper
The company has been rolling out collections of the comingled materials, as well as separate kerbside collections of newspapers and junk mail, to all 58,000 households in the Blackburn with Darwen area since starting the Blackburn contract in 2003.
It also takes materials from 26,000 homes in nearby Rossendale at its existing transfer station, which deals with about 20,000 tonnes glass, cans and plastics per year. Rossendale's collections are carried out by the borough council's in-house team.
RU Recycling has storing many comingled material since collections started last year. Once the MRF is up and running, glass will go to Bardon Aggregates, steel will go to Corus, Aluminium to Alcan, HDPE plastics to Linpac, PET plastics to Plastics Recovery. The company sends about 3,380 tonnes per year of paper to Aylesford Newsprint.
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