NE Lincs scraps plans for garden waste charge
In October 2011, the council announced plans to charge householders 25 a year from April 2012 for the fortnightly collection service, which is currently free. The council acknowledged at the time that this could damage its overall recycling rate by up to 7% but was keen to cut costs (see letsrecycle.com story).
However, the council has now decided that no charge will be introduced, except where householdersdemand more than one bin. As a result, the local authority is currently exploring other ways to save money. A spokeswoman the council said: “The council’s cabinet has agreed that officers will develop an alternative business case which will look to retain free kerbside collections of garden waste. However additional bins will be subject to a charge.
Viridor wins three year MRF contract
Viridor has been awarded a three year contract by the London Borough of Tower Hamlets to sort and market mixed recyclable materials arising from households in the borough.
Viridor, part of the Pennon Group plc, has already been working with Tower Hamlets over the last 4 years sorting and marketing the councils 13,000 tonnes of recyclates at its large materials recycling facility (MRF) in Crayford, Kent. Recovering glass, mixed plastics, cartons, aluminium and steel cans, mixed paper and cardboard, the renewed contract will continue to help the council improve its recycling rates. Since working with Viridor, recycling levels have increased from 13% in 2008 to the current level of 29%.
June Barlow, Viridors tender manager, welcomed the contract award. She said: Over the years we have worked very closely with Tower Hamlets to identify ways to improve the quality and volumes of materials it collects and as such were delighted to be able to continue our partnership work with the authority.
Consultation on single environment body for Wales
Welsh environment minister John Griffiths has launched detailed proposals around his decision to establish a single body to manage Wales natural resources.
The consultation follows the ministers announcement in November 2011 in which he said that he was minded to move to a single body that would replace the Countryside Council for Wales, the Environment Agency Wales and the Forestry Commission for Wales.
The aim of the new body will be to ensure the most sustainable and effective management of Wales natural resources. Over a ten year period, it is estimated that the transition from three environment bodies could result in savings of up to 158m before costs. The consultation specifically covers the legal changes needed to establish the new body, its overall purpose, arrangements around customer and stakeholder engagement, accountability and transparency, and the Welsh Governments wider ambitions for the new body.
The minister said: I am convinced that the establishment of a single body will ensure the most sustainable management of Wales natural resources. Not only will it result in a more streamlined way of working, it will also ensure more effective delivery, improved value for money and better outcomes for Welsh people, Welsh businesses and the environment.
However it is important that we get the detail right. This consultation will give everyone with an interest the opportunity to have their say on how the new body should operate and be managed.
Metal recycling campaign launches in Northern Ireland
The metal packaging industry has teamed up with local authority waste partnership arc21 and its waste management partner Bryson Recycling to launch the MetalMatters programme to householders across the east of Northern Ireland.
Launched on February 6, the campaign is the UKs biggest industry-funded recycling programme focused on boosting collection levels for packaging, involving funding partners from across the metal packaging, reprocessing and drinks industries.
Funded jointly by the metal packaging producers and reprocessors, arc21 and the Department of Environments Rethink Waste campaign, the awareness programme is designed to increase the amount of metal packaging collected from the kerbside. One of the key messages is that there is no limit to the amount of times metal products can be recycled.
Lending his support to the MetalMatters programme Northern Irelands Environment Minister Alex Attwood, said: I congratulate Metal Matters on this innovative initiative. Recycling metal packaging saves energy and valuable raw materials while reducing the amount of waste we send to landfill.
The infrastructure to collect and process recycled metal is already well established in Northern Ireland and this new recycling programme will boost our metal recycling rates and in turn increase the supply of valuable materials for reuse by our local industry. I am also looking at the issue of metal theft which is an element of the metal management agenda that may well need further attention.
HW Martin crew members collect NVQ Awards
Ten collection crew workers employed by HW Martin Waste have achieved their NVQ Level 2 in Waste Management Operations.
The crew members are from the teams delivering the company’s kerbside recycling collections contracts for Bolsover district council and North East Derbyshire district council.
NVQ Awards in the Bolsover crews have gone to: Paul Greevy, Carl Allwood and Vic Allwood; and in the North East Derbyshire crews to: Lee Robinson, Ashley Sheppard, Scott Alton, Jamie Collings, Jamie Sellars, Carl Slater and Joshua Slater.
HW Martin Waste Ltd congratulated them all for their achievements and their continued effort and commitment to the service.
Based in Derbyshire, HW Martin Waste Limited operates waste and recyclable materials collections services, household waste recycling centres (HWRCs) and waste transfer stations (WTSs) for several local authorities across the UK, from Tyneside in the north-east to Milton Keynes in the south. The company also operates its own materials recovery facilities (MRFs) in which it sorts residential and commercial collections of recyclable materials and a refuse derived fuel (RDF) facility.
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