News in Brief

Mid UK retains South Kesteven contract

Mid UK – which also provides a commingled recycling service to the UK's top recycling council, North Kesteven – was awarded the three-year deal to cover 58,000 homes in the district following a marked increase in recycling rates over the past 18 months, which has seen the district obtain a 51% recycling and composting rate. The service offered to the Lincolnshire district covers dry recyclables – paper, glass, plastic and tin – as well as green waste and the company also intends to construct a biomass facility for use by both North and South Kesteven councils.

Dawn Temple, street scene manager at South Kesteven council, said: “We're delighted that we will continue to work with Mid UK. They have helped us to launch and establish a really successful, value for money service to everyone in the district and we look forward to working together with all our residents to keep driving down the amount of waste we send to landfill.”

Merseyside recycling site hits 100,000t mark

At the event last Friday (October 10), it was announced that the Wirral-based recycling site had surpassed the milestone through the use of an in-house materials recovery facility, which recovers and sorts glass, paper and cans, plastic bottles and carboard from Wirral council kerbside collections. The site – which was developed by the council, Defra and the Merseyside Waste Disposal Authority (MWDA) – also includes a household waste recycling centre, a waste transfer facility and an education centre.

Carl Beer, director of the MWDA, said: “This is already one of Merseyside's busiest waste management sites, and has been up and running for some time. It's performed better than we could ever had hoped and has boosted – along with the help of our District Council partners – Wirral and Merseyside's recycling rate.”

Ministerial responsibilities announced for DECC

The Government has announced the ministerial responsibilities for the members of the newly formed Department of Energy and Climate Change.

Following Joan Ruddock's move from Defra (see letsrecycle.com story), the former Minister for Waste will now be responsible for delivering a low carbon economy and ensuring secure and affordable energy supply in in her new role as Parliamentary Under Secretary of State. Ms Ruddock will focus on energy consumers, addressing the Government's fuel poverty policy and specifically, delivering the PM's fuel bills initiative, as well as specific attention on energy savings (in the residential sector), the Carbon Reduction Commitment, behaviour change and Act on CO2, Climate Change Levy and Climate Change Agreements and will also be Bill Minister for the Climate Change Bill. In addition, Ms Ruddock will support Secretary of State, Ed Milliband MP, on international negotiations on climate change.

As part of the new responsibilities, Minister of State Lord Hunt will be charged with working alongside Defra on issues of waste relating to both departments, in addition to his responsibilities for energy innovation, emerging technologies, heat supply, coal liabilities and representing the DECC in the House of Lords. The final DECC minister is Mike O'Brien MP, Minister of State, who will focus on low carbon economy and energy supply as well as energy markets.

Local authority officers win Alupro project visit

Two local authority officers have won the chance to visit Malawi to witness the aluminium recycling industry project to grow a tree for every tonne of aluminium cans and foil recycled.

Later this month, Sue Daynes of North Lincolnshire Council and James Dunlop from the London Borough of Camden, will join Alupro's Cherry Hamson on her annual review visit to the country, after winning the invitation through their work promoting the recycling campaign locally with schools and the general public.

Mrs Daynes and Mr Dunlop will have the opportunity to see the initiative firsthand, which is being run with small UK charity Ripple Africa and aims to build sustainability in the region by helping to halt deforestation, improve nutrition, and provide the basis for trade and small fruit drying and juicing businesses.

Record sentece for “professional polluter”

A “career criminal who made environmental crime his professional business” has been handed a 32 month jail term and ordered to pay £20,000 following a prosecution brought by the Environment Agency.

Harvey Gibson, who had operated Watford-based skip firm GD Massey & Son despite being disqualified from doing so, was found to have knowingly and illegally stored and disposed of controlled waste following a two year, multi-agency investigation into his illegal practises. Following close examination from Environment Agency officers, Mr Gibson was found to have collected waste from businesses in the Home Counties and London which he then disposed of in a disused quarry in Berkshire and a field in Buckinghamshire. The 85 tonnes of waste found at the Tidmarsh quarry site was deemed to pose a risk to the quality of drinking water in the area.

Environment Agency officer Rod Gould, said: “Today's decision by the court is the culmination of a four-year effort to ensure Mr Gibson is held accountable for his crimes. This case demonstrates the Environment Agency's absolute determination to tackle the big, bad and nasty end of environmental crime, and that no one is above the law or untouchable.”