‘Self-help’ as Kent keeps Viridor as recycling partner

And, the agreement sees some market risk shared between the council and the contractor under a ‘self-help’ approach.

The contract, which officially commences in July, will run for two years with the option of a further two year extension.

According to Viridor, around 60,000 tonnes of recycling is collected from households across seven districts in Kent every year, which is transported to its materials recycling facility in Crayford, south east London. Material such as paper, card, plastic bottles, cans and glass will be sorted using optical sortation, mechanical process and manual quality control.

The waste and recycling business says it has responded to “challenging commodity market conditions” over the last 12 months, by developing an “innovative partnership” with a ‘self-help’ style contract.

Partnership

The contract sees both parties “share an element of the risk of fluctuating commodity market price movements”, Viridor has stated. The company has also implemented an optimisation programme for material input specifications and processing methods at its materials recycling facility, which it claims results in a higher proportion of the delivered material being transformed into high quality recyclate.

Chris Jonas, director of business development for Viridor, said of the partnership: “Being able to continue our partnership with Kent county council is a fantastic move for Viridor, Kent county council and the residents of the county.

“By working together we are able to increase the amount of material that Kent recycles by using a state-of-the-art materials recycling facility and also increase the amount of high quality recyclate entering the manufacturing sector in our ever more circular economy.”

A spokesperson for Kent county council added: “Following a comprehensive procurement exercise involving a review of our recycling and resource management services we are delighted to award this contract to Viridor for the processing and onward sale of kerbside recycling.

“We have worked with Viridor over the last few years and appreciate they are positioned at the cutting-edge of new technologies and as a result the Crayford materials recycling facility enables us to recover the value from much of the material our residents place in their recycling bins every week.”