The borough was forced to explain its recycling system this week after it emerged that its recycling rate had fallen from 18.91% in 2000/01 to 17.8% in 2001/02.
Confusion
Kingston's recycling manager Ken Lawson told letsrecycle.com that an expansion in the number of materials being collected at the kerbside had caused confusion amongst residents.
In July 2001, collections of paper and cardboard to 50,000 of the 60,000 households in the borough were replaced by a collection of paper, plastics, cans and textiles. The new collections saw the materials separated at the doorstep by contractors SITA.
Mr Lawson said: “The problem was the contractor had to collect other materials along with the paper that was originally collected.” Although the tonnage of metals and plastics recycled in the borough subsequently rose, the amount of other materials recycled fell.
Contamination
A particular problem was contamination of the paper stream by cardboard, which was no longer including in the kerbside scheme. “The paper and magazines are still contaminated with cardboard,” Mr Lawson said.
The council is hoping to solve the problem with a waste awareness and reduction campaign aimed at the public which it hopes to launch this summer. Mr Lawson said: “We have a 35% participation rate in the door to door scheme, but if we were to educate people we could double that to 60-70% participation and hopefully get over 50% recycling from the door to door service.”
SITA Recycling's general manager Paul Dumpleton said of its work in Kingston: “The key to the success of any recycling scheme with the public is consistency and when any change is made, people take a while to get back on board with what has happened. It's a fully comprehensive box collection system and when you change it even for the better sometimes participation drops. I'm confident that through our efforts and the council's, things will build back up again.”
Kingston's paper is currently processed by Ideal Waste Paper in London, their glass goes to Berrymans, textiles go to Lawrence Barry and metals go to Alcan and Firbank. Its plastics are currently sorted by Cleanaway in Rainham, but the council is hoping to use part of a recent grant of 157,000 from the London Recycling Fund to remove plastic contaminants in-house and deal directly with plastic reprocessors.
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