Rejected recycling costs Wigan £25,000 in two months

The blue bin is used to recycle paper and cardboard only but Wigan council is finding the wrong items are more frequently being put in the bin, including food – with leftover pizza being the biggest culprit.

Other unwanted items included nappies, carrier bags, textiles and cushions, polystyrene, crisp and biscuit packets, general waste and wallpaper.

UPM

According to Wigan waste officer Phillip Wilson, at present, paper and cardboard recyclables in Wigan are handled through its waste disposal contract with FCC Environment, but loads are ultimately sent on to UPM Shotton’s materials recycling facility (MRF) in Deeside, near Ellesmere Port.

If any of these items are found in the wagon’s 22-tonne load at UPM Shotton’s MRF, the load is rejected.

The load is then sent back to Wigan where the material is put through as residual waste, meaning all efforts to recycle are lost. According to the council, it costs up to £2,000 for each contaminated load.

And, in the last two months, 14 wagon loads of recycling have been rejected – at an estimated cost of £25,000.

In a bid to stop the problem growing, the Greater Manchester local authority says it is now taking a “zero tolerance” approach. Blue bins containing contamination will be labelled with a red contamination sticker. The stickers will give the reason why the bin has not been collected.

Problem

Councillor Kevin Anderson, cabinet member for environment at Wigan council, said: “This problem has been increasing over recent months so it is right that we take a proactive approach to dealing with it.

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“Red stickers will be issued on bins which have contamination and we hope residents affected will understand that it benefits us all to recycle the right waste in the right bin. This problem is now costing taxpayers a significant amount of money, money which could be put to better use.”

To help reduce contamination, residents have been reminded to remove all food, including pizza crusts, from boxes and then recycle it in their green bin.

They are also expected to remove magazines from their plastic wrapping, remove polystyrene from the inside of cardboard boxes, and donate unwanted textiles to charity shops.

From 1 April 2015, Wigan council is due to directly enter into a contract with UPM to continue deliveries of paper, cardboard and tetra to the Shotton MRF. FCC will meanwhile continue to manage the recyclables through its 25-year waste treatment contract.