Councils seeking advice on increasing recycling revenue
Local authorities are seeking independent advice to extract more value from household waste, Axion Consulting has claimed.
The resource recovery consultancy claims that more councils are looking to waste evaluation services to find ‘innovative’ ways to improve waste collections and increase revenue from waste.
Axion adds that common methods to understand value available in waste streams includes compositional studies and reviewing existing collection services to assess the value being gained from waste being collected and processed.
Liz Morrish, principal consultant at the firm, said: “Local authorities are always trying to extract more value from the waste they are responsible for and this can be achieved by moving waste up the hierarchy. This could be achieved by collecting other materials at the kerbside for recycling, or through energy recovery so that waste is diverted from landfill.
“Many councils have now achieved a good level of recycling, but rates still need to increase to meet EU targets. So the focus is now on what is left in the residual waste stream and what else could be captured from which to gain value; this is becoming increasingly important as budget cuts start to bite.”
Axion has worked with Hampshire county council and Project Integra focusing on analysing plastic waste collected throughout the county to understand better the types and volume of plastic that could potentially be recycled.
This study provided a more detailed breakdown of plastic formats and types and explored the effects that changing collection of plastics would have on recycling rates; such as collecting pots, tubs and trays, as well as identifying end markets for plastic waste.
In a separate on-going project for Merseyside Recycling and Waste Authority, Axion is working with consultancy Amec Foster Wheeler on compositional analysis of various waste streams, including residual waste, dry recyclables, garden waste and food waste.
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Telford seeks HWRC savings with service change
Telford & Wrekin council will be overhauling its household waste recycling centre (HWRC) service in a bid to save up to £140,000 per year.
The overhaul will see two recycling centres at Ketley and Granville close and a new site at Hortonwood open in October. This will mean that the borough has two recycling centres – at Hortonwood and an existing site at Halesfield.
The new Hortonwood site will also have a transfer station. The opening of this was part of Veolia’s contractual commitment to divert waste away from landfill when it took over the council’s recycling service and has been brought forward from 2019.
Both sites – one in the north of the borough, one in the south – will be open 9am-5pm seven days a week, 362 days a year.
The change will mean that Telford and Wrekin’s household recycling centres are open for 770 hours extra per year and also removes the uncertainty of whether a site is open or not on a given day, the council claims.
Councillor Shaun Davies, Telford & Wrekin council’s cabinet member for neighbourhood and customer services, said: “We have taken on board feedback that we were given by users of the existing centres in a residents’ survey done by Veolia last year.
“This indicated that 30% of residents were satisfied with the existing opening times at household recycling centres. So I am delighted that as part of our budget proposals to make £30 million worth of cuts, we have come up with a plan that delivers an even better service that saves a significant amount of money.”
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LOWMAC to run Greenhags HWRC
Ayrshire based waste management company LOWMAC Alloys limited has been awarded the contract to manage East Renfrewshire council’s Greenhags HWRC at Newton Mearns.
The contract starting on April 1 2016 runs for an initial period of two years with two optional six-month extensions. The site currently operates seven days per week accepting over 20,000 tonnes per annum of mixed waste including wood, WEEE, batteries, garden waste and cardboard.
Robert Hall, commercial operations at LOWMAC Alloys, said: “We are pleased that we have been awarded this exciting contract. It is a testimony for the hard work and commitment by our team and we relish the new challenge.”
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Chambers invests in Aldershot plant
Hampshire based waste and quarrying firm Chambers Waste Management has completed a major investment in refurbishing its recycling facility at Aldershot, creating employment for eight people.
The site was formerly a transfer station where waste was stored before being transferred to other facilities for processing. The latest investment has seen the installation of a state of the art recycling plant which enables the company to efficiently segregate paper, wood, cardboard, plastics, aggregate and both ferrous and non-ferrous metals on site.
Any non-recyclable residue from the plant is taken to Chambers Waste Management’s recycling facility in Guildford, Surrey, to be baled and wrapped to produce a high quality refuse-derived fuel product.
To service the new plant the company has also purchased two state of the art machines to handle the waste: a Liebherr LH22 – which carries out the first waste segregation and loads the plant – and a JCB 550-80 Wastemaster Loadall to unload all the various recycling materials from the plant onto transport.
Emma Chambers, finance director at Chambers Waste Management said: “Our new Aldershot recycling centre has greatly enhanced our environmental credentials. It enables us to meet demands for recycling services while streamlining our operations – by cutting down on the number of lorry journeys between our sites, increasing recycling rates and reducing the amount of waste sent to landfill.
“Eight new jobs have been created including the role of site manager and waste operatives, taking the total number employed at Aldershot to ten. As a local family run business we are particularly pleased to be bringing a boost to the Aldershot economy.”
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