It now looks unlikely that the Milton Keynes MRF will open for several months as the council and operator Community Waste are to meet this week to discuss the way forward. The building and equipment, which were damaged in a fire earlier this month, are understood to be insured by the council.
Alongside the Milton Keynes closure, MRF capacity has been put under pressure by the need for operators to ensure the quality of the material produced. This quality issue first arose after the Department for Environment food and Rural Affairs wrote to local authorities calling for them to assess exactly where their recyclable materials were being sent.
The letter came in the wake of the Environment Agency stepping up its enforcement of long-standing shipment rules which has since led to some containers of export materials belonging to Grosvenor Waste being returned.
South East
As a result of the Agency action, Grosvenor, which has a large MRF in Erith, north Kent, has been forced to introduce some extra controls on volumes of material coming into its plant.
One of Grosvenor's major customers is Cory Environmental, which uses the Erith MRF to process material from the Western Riverside Waste Authority in London. The Authority’s area has a population of 850,000 and includes four London boroughs: Kensington & Chelsea, Hammersmith & Fulham, Lambeth and Wandsworth.
” As recycling levels increase and reprocessors become more confident that material will be available from the waste stream, we detect a real sharpening of the appetite to invest in this sector. “
– Jennie Price, WRAP
Cory Environmental, which receives commingled material collected from households within the four boroughs, told letsrecycle.com that it is still taking its full volume of material for sorting from the Authority. However, Cory is understood to be making use of some spare capacity provided by Cleanaway, which has MRFs in Rainham, Essex and Greenwich, London.
A Cory spokeswoman said: “Currently the majority of the commingled material is still going to Grosvenor – they do have enough capacity at the moment. Material is also going to a second MRF.”
A statement from Onyx said that the company is currently operating its two Hampshire MRFs – in Alton and Portsmouth – at full capacity. Some spare capacity at the plants is being used to handle material from outside the county and should Hampshire generate more material this will create additional pressure.
WRAP
Some of the recent pressure on MRFs has been attributed to the success of national publicity campaigns run by the Waste and Resources Action Programme, especially last Christmas. John Viviani, managing director of Grosvenor, has commented that WRAP's work has led to more materials being collected, but that the organisation has not taken sorting capacity into account.
WRAP chief executive Jennie Price told letsrecycle.com that the organisation’s “Recycle Now” advertising campaign is just one element of a major and fully integrated programme of work being undertaken through Defra’s Waste Implementation Programme.
Mrs Price said: “Other elements of that programme directly address the infrastructure needed to deal with the increasing amount of recyclables now being extracted from the waste stream, including Defra funding for new collection and sorting facilities and WRAP’s work on markets.
“There have already been several major new investments in reprocessing capacity in the UK as a result of WRAP’s work, including the Shotton newsprint project and further investment at JFC-Delleve, which has tripled the UK’s plastic reprocessing capacity.”
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Mrs Price added: “As recycling levels increase and reprocessors become more confident that material will be available from the waste stream, we detect a real sharpening of the appetite to invest in this sector. We have had an excellent response to recent competitions offering capital grants for new reprocessing infrastructure, and boosting reprocessing capacity in the UK remains a central element of our strategy.”
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