North Lincolnshire council has brought forward plans to roll out kerbside collections of small waste electrical and electronic equipment borough-wide, after its recycling contractor Palm Recycling agreed to provide the service for free.
The decision follows a pilot scheme unveiled in November 2010, which saw 3,300 of the boroughs 72,000 households receive free collections of small WEEE as part of the fortnightly recycling service provided by Palm at no extra cost to the council (see letsrecycle.com story).
North Lincolnshire had then planned to explore a borough-wide roll-out of the WEEE kerbside collections as part of the procurement of its new recycling collection contract, as the current deal with Palm expires in March 2012.
But, the council last week (March 29) revealed that the results of the pilot scheme had led both Palm and the compliance scheme responsible for dealing with the equipment collected, REPIC, to confirm they could offer the service borough-wide for free later this year.
As a result, the borough-wide roll out – involving the waste stream being collected alongside residents fortnightly recycling collections – will now begin on May 16 2011.
The two month trial, which began in January 2011, yielded 203 kilograms of small WEEE over a two month period. North Lincolnshire council estimates that rolling out the service to all its households could divert 1,000 tonnes-a-year of WEEE from landfill.
This would be significantly more than the 490 tonnes of small WEEE deposited at its household recycling centres last year, and the councils head of waste management, Kevin Booth, claimed there was huge potential to increase the amount collected.
He said: By giving more people the opportunity to recycle these items through their kerbside collection scheme, we are hopeful that we will see a significant drop in the amount that is landfilled, which in turn will help protect the environment.
Obligation
Under the current UK WEEE recycling system, there are no legal obligations on either councils or producers to run or fund kerbside collections of WEEE, and as such few local authorities offer a service.
However, the kerbside route is viewed as having a key role to play if the UK is to reach the tougher targets expected under the ongoing recast of the EU WEEE Directive (see letsrecycle.com story).
Councils have called on electronics producers to be made responsible for funding the service (see letsrecycle.com story) calling for the recast to beef up its proposals for them to be encouraged to pay for collections.
Questions
In North Lincolnshire, the borough-wide roll-out comes after the trial addressed questions the council and its contractors had about householder participation and capture rates, as well as the logistics of transporting the WEEE collected.
Mr Booth told letsrecycle.com: The limited pilot area and its proximity to the material sorting facility was chosen because of the uncertainty surrounding these issues.
From the information obtained in the pilot scheme, Palm, REPIC and the council are all confident that expansion throughout North Lincolnshire is feasible and practical with the existing level of resources deployed.
Highlighting the benefits for the council in particular of introducing the service, he added: From the council’s perspective, in addition to providing a new service for the benefit of its residents, diverting waste away from landfill will also provide environmental benefits and cost savings. The sooner these can be achieved the better.
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