North Lincolnshire council is set to become one of the first local authorities in the UK to include small WEEE in its kerbside recycling collections, as part of a six-month trial which could see the service rolled out borough-wide.
The council approved plans last month (October 12) to introduce the pilot scheme for 3,300 of its 72,000 households, after its recycling collection contractor, Palm Recycling, indicated it would run the trial as part of its existing collection service at no additional cost to the council.
The move is significant given the increased amount of small WEEE that is expected to have to be collected if the UK is to meet potentially higher recycling targets for waste electrical equipment under the ongoing recast of the European WEEE Directive.
The council's waste analysis has show that, if it was to introduce the small WEEE service borough-wide, it could increase its small WEEE tonnage from the 489 tonnes captured at its eight household recycling centres in 2009/10 to 1,296 tonnes.
Obligation
North Lincolnshire's head of waste management, Kevin Booth, noted that there was little kerbside collection of WEEE at the moment due to there being no obligation on councils or electrical equipment producers to fund or run collections of WEEE directly from households
But, he said, “this could provide evidence to our producer compliance scheme that we can do this at not much additional cost,” noting that “we think we can do this without any additional infrastructure.”
Mr Booth explained that the trial was being run at no cost due to its contractor Palm Recycling having some spare capacity in four collection rounds within the Scunthorpe area that operated near to its waste transfer loading station.
He said that residents would be told they could leave small WEEE out in a standard plastic bag – therefore restricting the size of the material that could be left out for collection – to be picked up by Palm's stillage collection vehicles on their fortnightly kerbside recycling collections.
The material will then be taken from the council, free of charge, by its producer compliance scheme, REPIC, which currently collects WEEE from its household recycling centres.
Benefits
Mr Booth said that, in weight terms, offering the service would offer the potential to add a percentage point to North Lincolnshire's recycling rate, explaining that: “Obviously we'd like people to not produce this in the first place but with small WEEE we figure this has the potential to add an extra percentage point to our overall recycling performance.”
But, he said the key benefit was in terms of keeping it out of landfill, adding that: “We know small WEEE is one of the larger components of the waste stream, and it causes issues with end treatment due to its components.”
Roll-out
The council is now aiming to roll-out the trial service before Christmas, with promotional materials informing the 5% of its households covered by the pilot being part-funded by its compliance scheme, REPIC.
It then plans to review the results of the scheme, in terms of weight and volume of material captured, in six months' time, when it will consider the viability and costs of rolling it out borough-wide and also requiring small WEEE to be collected by its next kerbside collection contractor.
With tendering set to begin in the New Year, Mr Booth said: “I am guessing we'll include a requirement for prospective bidders to capture as many materials at the kerbside as they can, but we'd look at the potential additional cost of introducing this.”
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