News in Brief

Oxfordshire County Council is giving away calico shopping bags to resident in a bid to cut the amount of plastic bags going to its landfill sites.

It said that around 49,000 fewer plastic bags should be discarded this year as a result.

Residents have asked for 946 of the cloth bags since an information campaign was launched at the beginning of February, which covers general waste reduction issues and opportunities.

Anne Purse, the council's executive member for strategic planning and waste, said: “Plastic carrier bags take years to degrade. However, these calico bags last for years but degrade fairly quickly once they are thrown away.”

Steel manufacturer Corus has said the volume of steel cans recycled through its CanRoute system broke records in the final quarter of last year.

Some 100 million cans were recycled in that period and figures for January are expected to confirm this upward trend when available, the company said.

Corus Steel Packaging Recycling manager John May said: “There is a ready market for steel cans and the current price is at an all-time high of 60 per tonne.

“Steel can contribute significantly to local authority recycling targets because there is a large tonnage available in the domestic waste stream.”

Mr May said some 2,250 tonnes of iron ore and 750 tonnes of coal were being saved each month as a result of kerbside collections of steel cans sent through CanRoute.

A scrapyard operator has been fined 10,000 after ignoring repeated advice from the Environment Agency that his site broke the law.

Mark Leathley, who operates A1079 Salvage in East Yorkshire, pleaded guilty to two offences under the Environmental Protection Act. Mr Leathley was fined 5,000 for allowing waste to be deposited on his site and a further 5,000 for keeping it there, plus Agency costs of 3,700.

The court heard that Mr Leathley's exemption from a waste management licence had been withdrawn after Agency officials had noted that too many vehicles were being kept on the site. Despite loss of the licence exemption, Mr Leathley continued to dismantle and store scrap vehicles on the site and failed to attend two interviews with the Agency.

Special enforcement officer Steve Williamson said: “This man flouted the law and thought he&#39d; got away with it. We are delighted the court has recognised the gravity of these offences and the repeated and flagrant breaches of environmental law.”