Action for Community Recycling Enterprises (ACRE) runs the kerbside scheme with Rochdale metropolitan borough council. The service currently covers 79,000 homes, collecting glass and paper, but will also start collecting cans from early April 2003.
 ACRE manager Ian Scott (left), and Corus manager John May celebrate the PRN fund provision in Rochdale |
Rochdale council had originally asked ACRE to carry out a four-year pilot kerbside collection scheme. When it was completed, the council asked them to continue the kerbside collections across the whole borough, but due to a lack of council funds the service was restricted to paper and bottled glass.
Can collections will now gradually expand across the borough from April until May 2003. ACRE has acquired a new collection vehicle and added more cages onto existing vehicles using the Corus PRN money.
Laurence Tomlinson, business manager at ACRE, told letsrecycle.com that he is “very pleased” to have received the Corus PRN funds. “It has bought everything forward,” he said. ACRE is now looking to get funding from other companies so they can add more materials to their kerbside collection scheme in Rochdale.”
About 300 tonnes of mixed steel and aluminium cans is expected to be collected each year, and will be handled by European Metal Recycling, one of the 12 approved Corus CanRoute centres in the UK.
David Williams, commercial manager at Corus, said: “I am extremely pleased that the contribution of steel PRN funds has helped both the community sector and the Local Authority to improve an already successful kerbside scheme by the addition of mixed cans.”
The current recycling rate of the borough is only 3% – among the lowest in the country, but the council has said the rate is rising through projects like the kerbside scheme.
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