The action comes after the contractor had to landfill recyclables in the face of rapidly rising recycling rates and delays in the construction of new sorting facilities.
The 14 local authorities that make up the Project Integra waste partnership have reached recycling rates of around 21% – almost twice the national average – with kerbside collections picking up around 200,000 tonnes of material a year.
Local feeling has been particularly stirred up over the matter because the shortage of facilities has forced waste contractor Hampshire Waste Services – owned by Onyx Environmental – to landfill 1,300 tonnes of perfectly good dry recyclates since late September 2002.
Regrettable
A statement issued by Hampshire County Council said: “During 2002, the combined amount of recyclable and green garden waste that was sent to landfill was only around 4% of the total amount of material collected for recycling. While sending recyclables and green garden waste to landfill is regrettable, the success of recycling in Hampshire is driven by public demand.”
It went on: “Managing the amounts of material collected for recycling and ensuring there are sufficient facilities in place to cope, is a complex business. On this occasion the demand was greater than the capacity to reprocess the material for a short period. The key must be not to discourage those that recycle, and to encourage those that currently do not.”
Onyx Environmental, which owns contractors Hampshire Waste Services, referred enquiries about the difficulties to Hampshire county council.
Contingency
A new materials recovery facility (MRF) is planned near Alton that will handle around 84,000 tonnes a year when it opens in mid-2004. However, until then Hampshire has only one MRF, at Copnor near Portsmouth, which is at its full 68,000 tonne capacity. It had planned to build a MRF in Southampton, but planning difficulties were a factor in a decision not to build the plant.
To help overcome the current shortfall in processing capacity, Hampshire Waste Services is sending 800 – 1,000 tonnes of material each month to Cleanaway's MRF at Rainham in Essex, and Grundon's MRF near Reading, according to Steve Reed, executive officer for Project Integra.
“We will have to bridge the 18-month gap until the Alton MRF comes online in the middle of 2004,” he said. “But we have stopped landfilling the extra material since January. The trouble is we're expecting more and more material as several district councils' recycling programmes come online in the next few months.”
Problems
But some Hampshire councils have felt the need to hold back from recycling as much as they can because of the capacity crisis, and this means real problems for them in reaching a 40% recycling rate by 2005-06.
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