New plastic bag recycling wheeled bins have been made available at all 18 civic amenity sites in Somerset, but under the new initiative, the county council is also encouraging householders to cut down on their use of plastic carrier bags.
Councillor Hazel Prior-Sankey, Somerset's cabinet member with responsibility for waste, warmly welcomed the new scheme, which came soon after the county introduced household battery recycling containers at their sites.
But she pointed out: “The best way to deal with plastic bags is to not accept them in the first place.
“You can either reuse the old ones, or take a sturdy bag of your own when you go shopping, We realise that there will be times when people use plastic bags, and now they have the ability to recycle them rather than throwing them away,” Cllr Prior-Sankey added.
Market
The county's waste contractor, Viridor Waste Management, has not yet found an outlet for the waste batteries, and is currently storing collected batteries prior to finding a market.
Kevin Bishop, recycling manager in Somerset for Viridor, told letsrecycle.com: “To send out a load you need around 20 tonnes to go on a lorry, and one bin produces around half a kilo of carrier bags.
“There is going to be about 20-30 thousand carrier bags in a tonne, so at the moment we are storing the bags at our MRF and we will speak to contractors in three or four months time when we have nearer 20 tonnes. We know the markets are out there, but so much can change in such a short space of time so we are waiting,” he added.
Somerset county council achieved a recycling rate of 32% in 2004/05, while in 2005/06 its household waste recycling sites achieved an overall recycling rate of 73%.
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