South Gloucestershire to trial flexible collections
South Gloucestershire council has announced it will take part in a trial to collect plastic bags and wrapping from households as part of weekly recycling collections.
The first year of a potential three-year trial will see different types of plastic packaging collected from approximately 2,000 households. This includes items like plastic bags, confectionery wrappers, foil lined packaging, plastic film and more.
Collections are set to begin from 17 October, with selected households from parts of Bradley Stoke, Chipping Sodbury and Olveston taking part. Participants will be sent information on how to use the service along with collection bags.
The council added that, if the trial is successful, the number of included homes will expand in 2023, rolling out to all households in the district by 2025.
The trial will aim to provide information on the collection of plastic bags and wrapping ahead of the introduction of consistent collections for all households in England in 2027.
The council’s waste contractor, Suez, is working in partnership with industry organisations WRAP, RECOUP and Ecosurety to oversee the operation of the trial and arrange for the plastics to be recycled.
TerraCycle to recycle ‘food storage containers’
Recycling solutions company TerraCycle has announced the launch of a free recycling programme for food storage containers and reusable plastic water bottles.
The programme is open to anyone, with points awarded for every item sent in to be recycled. These points are then redeemable as monetary donations to fund good causes including charities, community initiatives and schools.
The recycling initiative has been set up by TerraCycle in collaboration with Sistema, a manufacturer of food storage containers and reusable bottles. The aim is to give “well-used” items a second life.
These items are considered hard-to-recycle due to the high-quality food grade BPA free materials from which they are made, TerraCycle says. While some councils collect and recycle some food storage containers, they often end up in landfill or incineration.
As well as collecting these items from homes, Terracycle also offers the option of creating a public drop-off location where the wider community can drop the items at one central point.
Julien Tremblin, general manager for TerraCycle Europe, said: “This is a first-of-its-kind recycling programme for the UK so we’d urge everyone to get involved and start collecting as much as possible, either from home or from the community.”
Residents can sign up on the programme page here.
Aberdeenshire to change collection cycle
Aberdeenshire council has announced it will move its collections to a three-weekly system from next March to “maximise recycling”.
The council took the decision after unanimously voting favour of the new cycle in January and receiving more than £3.4 million from the Scottish Government’s Recycling Improvement Fund (see letsrecycle.com story).
The new system will see a food waste caddy emptied every week, with alternations between residual waste bin, paper, card and cardboard bin and mixed containers bin each week.
An additional recycling bin is to be introduced for separation of paper, card and cardboard from the mixed containers. This is aimed at increasing the quality and capacity for recycling material.
Cory ups capacity at Belvedere EfW site
The Environment Agency announced this week (26 September) it has granted Cory a variation to the permit for its Riverside Resource Recovery Facility, an energy from waste (EfW) site in Belvedere, South London.
The Agency explained that the new permit will increase the energy generation limit from up to 72 to 80.5 megawatts. It will also increase the waste capacity from 785,000 to 850,000 tonnes per year and the annual amounts of some raw materials used.
The variation will see limit values for releases to air reduced, the regulator said. It added that “this is due to the current technology of combustion control, abatement and monitoring which can achieve, and accurately monitor, much lower levels of emissions”.
An Environment Agency spokesperson said: “We carried out a detailed and rigorous technical assessment of Riverside Resource Recovery Facility Limited’s application to vary the environmental permit, to satisfy ourselves that the new permit provides the appropriate level of environmental protection and that emissions can be managed effectively.”
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