News in Brief

Agricultural waste recycling company Solway Recycling will be offering plastic collections to Welsh farms with the aid of a grant from the Welsh Environmental Trust.

Farm plastic collections will increase because of new legislation

The company has been awarded a 28,000 Assembly Investment Grant to help promote the collection and recycling of agricultural waste from Welsh Farmers.

Solway has been operating in Wales since the beginning of 2005, it currently deals with around 70 farmers across the country.

Solway is set to purchase a lorry to collect both contaminated and non-hazardous waste.

From September this year farmers will have to comply with the Waste Framework Directive, which means they will no longer be able to burn or bury waste on site. Once the legislation begins farmers will have to deal with their waste through a registered waste carrier.

Walsall council has increased its range of recyclable material in a bid to further increase the borough's recycling rate.

The council currently runs a fortnightly collection service, which it has been rolling out over the last year. In a bid to increase yields the service now offers collection of cans, aerosols, foils, milk bottle tops, paper and glass.

Councillor Marco Longhi, cabinet member for environment, said: “The best way of reducing the amount of waste Walsall sends to landfill and keeping costs down for council tax payers is to recycle as much as we can.

“Any costs incurred by not meeting government recycling targets would have to be passed on to residents in the form of council tax increases,” he said.

Around 95% of the 101,000 households in the borough will be provided with the kerbside collection service.

Trio has launched a new recycling machine which uses five which the company believes will make collections easier for local authorities.

The new Trio X-5

The new X-5 has five separate sections which allows for the collection and segregation in transit of a wide variety of recyclable material.

Each section is fed through a trough mounted along the nearside of the vehicle. These are filled by the machine's operatives.

Once the troughs are full, they are raised by the X-5's on-board lifter which tips the contents into the vehicles separated compartments.

Cheltenham borough council is the first local authority to adopt the vehicle into its collection service. Trio has said that they are talking to other local authorities as well.

Lancashire county council is calling on its residents to recycle old catalogues as companies like Argos and Index set about issuing their new winter additions.

According to the council an estimated 70% of homes in Lancashire have an Argos catalogue, meaning that there is potentially 400,000 old catalogues which will become unnecessary in the coming month.

County councillor Tony Martin, cabinet member for sustainable development, said: “Recycling these catalogues is a simple thing that people can do that will make a big difference.

“Every tonne of paper we recycle saved 15 trees and their surrounding habitat. By recycling all our Argos catalogues we can save over 8,000 trees,” he added.