Powys county council says it has provided a trade waste service “for many years”. It was recently rebranded as Powys Commercial Recycling.
Each of the vehicles is a Euro 6. There are two 26-tonne twin packs – one for collecting glass, paper, and cardboard, the other for collecting plastics, cans, and food – and one 26-tonne single stream for collecting residual waste.
Cllr Heulwen Hulme, Powys’s cabinet member for waste and recycling, said in a statement: “Powys Commercial Recycling works with their customers to ensure they process their waste lawfully, whilst also doing their bit for the environment by recycling as much as possible.
“These three new Powys Commercial Recycling vehicles will ensure we can service all our existing clients and take on new customers who wish to improve their recycling and abide by the environmental legislation.”
Powys Commercial Recycling already has more than 1,000 customers, the council says, including businesses, organisations, charities, schools, and events.
The three new vehicles represent the service’s entire fleet, though it also uses one of the council’s garden waste vehicles and Romaquips, “as required”.
Trade waste
On the rebrand to Powys Commercial Recycling, a council spokesperson told letsrecycle.com: “This is to reflect the shift from collecting waste for landfill to utilising what we collect, whether that be material for recycling or residual waste which is taken to an energy from waste plant.”
The rebrand reflects the shift from collecting waste for landfill to utilising what we collect– Powys county council
The trade waste service provides paid-for recycling and residual collections for Powys businesses. Collections are carried out at different frequencies, the spokesperson said, “depending on the clients’ requirements”.
All material collected through the service passes through the council’s waste transfer stations and is sent to the “relevant processors”.
Any income attributed to the commercial collections goes to offset the costs of collections, the council said.
The spokesperson added: “Value for money for our customers and maximising recycling are the council’s priorities, with the service operating on a break-even basis.
“It is very difficult to make a surplus in a rural area such as Powys and still provide a consistent, value-for-money service to our customers.”
Electric vehicle
The council also said it was trialling an electric vehicle on one of its domestic rounds with a view to replacing the entire waste and recycling fleet with these vehicles in the future.
In May 2020, Powys county council claimed it had reached the Welsh government’s 64% statutory recycling target for 2019/20, with a rate of 64.4%.
In December, however, it announced a “clerical error” had gone unnoticed and been sent to Natural Resources Wales and the Welsh Government for verification. Its corrected recycling rate for 2019/20 is 63.05%.
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