The partnership will see around 18,000 tonnes of recycled material collected from households across Lewisham each year, which will be processed and sold by Viridor.
The council is the latest London authority to commit to sending material to the MRF, with Ealing having recently awarded Viridor a contract worth £3.6m to process its commingled recycling at the facility (see letsrecycle.com story).
Previously, Lewisham council had an interim arrangement with Viridor between December 2014 to June 2016 whilst it was undertaking a TEEP assessment and procurement (see letsrecycle.com story). Under the new contract, Lewisham council pays Viridor a gate fee, but also benefits from a revenue share arrangement where the council gets an income from the materials sold.
Prior to the interim contract, Lewisham’s recyclable materials had been processed by Bywaters under a contract which began in 2011.
Crayford
Viridor works with around 150 local authorities across the UK. The Crayford facility in Kent sorts materials collected from households across the south east— including paper, card, plastic bottles, cans and glass— using optical sortation, mechanical process and manual quality control.
Chris Jonas, director of business development for Viridor said: “Viridor is pleased to continue working with the London Borough of Lewisham for the next two and a half years.
“By developing a leading facility in the capital we are able to aggregate vital recycling services in a real ‘London resource network’ for a number of local authority partners offering greater value, convenience and quality.”
Councillor Rachel Onikosi, cabinet member for the Public Realm added: “This service is good news for the residents of Lewisham. Every day hundreds of tonnes of material are placed into recycling bins from households across the borough, and the Viridor facility in Crayford is able to sort out the commingled recycling into high quality commodities.
“This means that more of the material we throw away each week can be efficiently turned into new products to be placed on our shelves in the future, saving energy and delivering good value.”
Lewisham recently rolled out changes to its waste collection regime in a bid to improve its recycling rate beyond the current level of around 17.09% – the second worst in the country in 2014/15 (see letsrecycle.com story). Changes include moving to a paid-for garden waste service, weekly food collections and a fortnightly refuse collection.
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