A council report highlights concern about a “small decrease” now being observed in the city’s recycling rate, which stood at 43% in 2014/15.
According to the authority, this is due to a lack of investment in collection services as well as its existing waste disposal contractors recycling “less and less” from black bins due to “market requirements for increasingly high quality recyclables”.
In December 2011, the council approved household waste recycling targets of 55% by 2016 alongside a longer-term target to exceed 60% recycling.
But this strategy was based on “an envisaged investment in the city-wide roll-out of new kerbside services and the capture of new recycling streams, in particular food waste and glass” which has not taken place.
The council said its ability to deliver the expansion of recycling services has been “inhibited” by financial pressures, government funding cuts and “other services across the council currently needing to be prioritised”.
The statement from Leeds comes as central government departments for local government (DCLG) and the environment (Defra) agreed to cut their spending by an average of around 30%, as revealed by the Chancellor George Osborne on Monday (see letsrecycle.com story).
Costs
The 2011 recycling strategy for Leeds, which is now currently under review with a view to updating, set out recycling targets and aims to expand both glass and food waste collections across the city.
Currently, however, food waste is collected on a weekly basis from around 12,500 properties in the Rothwell area of the city, and the council website states that there are “no plans to expand this service to other areas”.
A report to a council scrutiny board next week estimates that rolling out an additional collection route similar to this elsewhere in Leeds would cost £165,000 a year – “even taking account of avoided disposal costs”.
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Furthermore, households in Leeds do not currently receive glass collections, but the council has ruled out including glass in its existing fortnightly household dry recyclables service due to EU legislation on separate collections.
Meanwhile, it estimates that a four-weekly separate kerbside glass collection route covering around 24,000 households would cost around £140,000 per year.
The council does, however, have an agreement with South-Kirkby firm Berryman (which trades as URM UK Ltd) to recycle glass from Leeds’ HWRCs and bring sites. According to documents, this is an interim solution, with the council planning to undertake a full procurement once its recycling strategy is “clearer”.
The council still intends to resume the expansion of recycling collection services across the city “once resources become available”.
But, in the meantime, the council intends to focus on “maximising existing recycling capacity and infrastructure” supported by community engagement and communication campaigns.
A plan is also being drawn up to increase recycling from the 25% of households which have been deemed unsuitable for existing alternate weekly collections, many of which are flats and high rise buildings.
Veolia EfW
Also contributing to its stagnating recycling rates, the council claims that it is recovering less quality material from residual waste, the majority of which – around 170,000 tonnes each year – is currently landfilled at a cost of around £15 million.
However, the council believes its £460 million, 25-year PFI deal signed with Veolia in 2012 to construct and build an energy from waste facility in the city will help to “arrest this decline and safeguard recycling from black bin waste at an appropriate level”.
Once operational in March next year, the EfW plant will have the capacity to process up to 214,000 tonnes of waste per year, with around 10% of this waste extracted and recycled. The council estimates that the Veolia deal will save around £6.8 million each year compared to continued reliance on landfill (see letsrecycle.com story).
But, the council report warns that Leeds’ recycling strategy additionally “needs to focus more on the higher quality materials captured through separation at source by householders”.
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