The borough awarded Cheshire Recycling a collection contract last autumn for a multi-material kerbside scheme taking in newspapers and magazines, cans, glass containers and textiles. Serving about 53,000 homes, the kerbside scheme excludes cardboard and mixed paper and also plastic bottles. The contract is expected to run for at least two years and has been heavily subsidised by the government through a 550,000 grant from the London Recycling Fund and the council highlighted that the scheme is not costing its residents any extra.
 Sue Duckworth, Richmond upon Thames Recycling Officer, with Ron Humphries, MD of Cheshire Recycling |
Launched in November, about a month later than planned, the scheme immediately ran into problems with collections missed and some residents confused about what to do. RJ Harris Contracts, of Portsmouth, operates the kerbside collection scheme for Cheshire using a fleet of five vehicles. It had difficulties in recruiting a workforce locally and is now bussing in drivers and operatives to the borough. Some residents say that the uptake of the scheme is patchy and Richmond recycling officer Sue Duckworth accepts there is much to do still to promote the scheme. However, the council reports “record levels of recycling” in the first weeks of 2003.
Leading
Speaking at the event last Thursday to formally mark the launch of the contract, David Streeter, Richmond upon Thames head of environmental and operational services, said that there are growing waste problems facing the UK. “In Richmond we recycle a little and are one of the leading recycling authorities, but it is still only a little. We send waste to West London Waste at Brentford and they send it in containers to Oxfordshire. Over 80% of our waste is just dumped in the ground in landfill. We are now recycling 18,000 tonnes, about 18% of our waste.”
Mr Streeter said the council had a good track record in recycling. “We have been building the infrastructure for 18 years. We had high density bring schemes, door-to-door kerbside paper, but we have stuck at 18% so we needed to do something.”
Landfill
Explaining the requirements of the Landfill Directive, Mr Streeter went on to tell his audience of councillors, council officers from Richmond and other boroughs, and recyclers that the landfill causes “tremendous problems. Methane has 65% greater effect than the equivalent mass of carbon dioxide and it is doing enormous harm to the environment.”
He recalled how in the past recommendations had been made for change but governments had not listened. “It is a sad indictment that it takes a Directive to make the UK change its practice.”
Ron Humphries, managing director of Cheshire Recycling, told the audience of the advantages of the contract. In particular he noted that the local authority through using Cheshire had a guaranteed market for the material collected. Cheshire would take the newspaper and magazines; Alcan and Corus the cans; Lawrence M Barry the textiles; and United Glass the glass containers.
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