Northampton has awarded a contract for 170,000 kerbside boxes and 56,000 wheeled bins to Straight Recycling.
All 85,000 householders in the borough will be given two recycling boxes, a green 44-litre box for paper and cardboard and a blue 55-litre box for plastic bottles, cans and foil. The alternate weekly collections of recyclables and residual waste are being phased in over the next two months.
 Northampton borough council operative Graham Smith delivering some of the new bins |
Gill Dillon, waste minimisation manager at the council, said: “Northampton has enjoyed good recovery rates since we began recycling 30 years ago. However, we're aiming for an increase from last year's 14% to something like 24% this year.”
With one of the largest populations of any district council in England, the council collects about 62,000 tonnes of waste each year, and after its 24% target for the end of this financial year, it will have to reach a 36% recycling and composting rate by 2005/06.
MRF
Northampton built its Westbridge Depot materials recycling facility in 1968, but has spent 250,000 upgrading it to process materials from the new service. This will include the addition of a new conveyor belt, extra balers and a mechanical sorter for steel and aluminium cans, and should increase the MRF's capacity from 13,500 tonnes a year to 20,000 tonnes.
As well as the new boxes, 28,000 householders will be given 240-litre wheeled bins, a black bin for residual waste and a brown bin for green waste, also to be collected on alternate weeks.
Straight Recycling is offering those households that are not being given wheeled bins discounted home composting and water butts. But, a council spokeswoman told letsrecycle.com that they would be looking to expand the wheeled bin service in the future.
Shares in Leeds-based Straight, which was floated on the Alternative Investment Market last year (see letsrecycle.com story), rose by 7p to 94.5p on the back of news of the Northampton contract.
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