Monmouthshire adds foil to kerbside collections

South Wales local authority Monmouthshire county council has hailed the input of aluminium packaging recycling body Alupro in helping it to add aluminium foil containers to its kerbside recycling collections for the first time.

The council has added the material, which has historically had a low collection rate, to its weekly household recycling collections, which use a red bag for paper and card and a green bag for cans, aerosols, glass, mixed plastics and, from now on, foil.

The roll-out of the new service has been brought about with the use of free consultancy and communications resources provided by Alupro through its industry-funded ‘Aerofoil' campaign, which was launched in September 2009 with the aim of encouraging more councils to collect aerosols and foil at the kerbside (see letsrecycle.com story).

According to Alupro, Monmouthshire's service change will divert more than six million foil containers from landfill every year, while the council's head of waste, Dave Harris, also claimed it came in response to calls from residents for them to be able to recycle more materials via their kerbside collections.

“This service is great news for households who want to do more to help the environment. It answers calls from many local residents to increase the range of containers they can recycle at the kerbside,” he said.

He also welcomed the assistance provided by Alupro, adding that: “Alupro's advice and support has been extremely useful in helping [to] expand the collection and deal with any issues that arose.”

The benefits of the service were further emphasised by Alupro's executive director, Rick Hindley, who said: “Every tonne of aluminium recycled saves around nine tonnes of CO2 – so taking part in this scheme will make a valuable contribution to protecting the environment.”

Monmouthshire collects the material through its in-house recycling collection service. Material is then taken to SCA Recycling's material recycling facility (MRF) in Southampton for sorting before being sold on to recovered material markets.

Low collection rate

The currently low collection rate for foil nationwide was highlighted at Alupro's 2010 conference earlier this month, where WRAP's director for local government services, Phillip Ward, claimed that a “disappointingly low” 8% or 9% of the 24,000 tonnes of foil put onto the market each year was being collected for recycling.

At the conference, Mr Ward revealed that WRAP was working to review methods for sorting aluminium foil from cans, with the dual aim of helping to increase both the quality of cans being collected and the quantity of foil (see letsrecycle.com story).

The need to capture more of the material has been further accentuated by the prospect of tougher packaging recycling targets for aluminium being introduced, under plans that were launched for consultation by the previous government (see letsrecycle.com story).