Support grows for Defra commingling stance

In letters sent to letsrecycle.com, which can be seen in our new letters section, the chief executive of waste company Viridor, Colin Drummond, and the chief executive of The Recycling Association, Simon Ellin, outlined their reasons for supporting commingling.

Mr Ellin also attacked the divisive and mis-informed opposition to the governments position. This has seen source-separation advocates the Campaign for Real Recycling threaten to launch a judicial review over the issue (see letsrecycle.com story).

In his letter, Mr Drummond said he welcomed Defras decision to include commingled collections in its interpretation of Article 11(1) of the revised Waste Framework Directive (see letsrecycle.com story).

This expects the separate collection of at least paper, plastic, glass and metal for recycling from 2015.

Mr Drummond claimed that commingling followed by sorting at a materials recycling facility (MRF) was the best approach for both local authority and commercial and industrial waste management.

He wrote: Classing them as a separate collection of recyclables represents a common-sense approach to sustainable waste management, as it is realistically often the only solution to enable increased recycling levels of commercial and industrial waste. This simple and convenient, one stop approach also encourages the highest participation levels.

There is clear evidence that local authorities employing commingled collections are achieving the highest recycling rates in the UK, and that such systems offer simple, safe and cost-effective recycling collections with minimum disruption to traffic flows for public and private sector waste producers.

The opposition to the governments position on commingling has included claims that the approach works against the requirement made by the same Article 11(1) for EU member states to encourage high-quality recycling.

But, Mr Drummond wrote: The advanced processing technologies and quality control methods found in modern, well-managed MRFs ensure that the quality of output products from commingled collections matches, and can exceed that of, alternative systems

He noted that, for MRF outputs to continue to sell both in the UK and overseas, they had to meet high quality standards required for remanufacturing and pointed in particular to the investment in MRFs made by several leading paper mills in the UK.

Paper sector

In his letter, Mr Ellin, who is also chief executive of The Recycling Associations trading arm, Independent Waste Paper Producers Ltd, wrote: Co-mingled kerbside collections tick many boxes participation, economics and environment being the main ones.

Echoing Mr Drummonds comments, Mr Ellin described commingling as a perfectly feasible and highly successful mode of recovery and noted the investments made in MRF and collection infrastructure and claimed they had increased services, participation and recovery rates.

The Recycling Association sees first hand, both through its member services, and through its trading division, the qualities that most MRFs are now producing – they produce green list commodities of good and ever improving qualities that have many applications both in the UK and abroad, he wrote.

Mr Ellin also highlighted the important role that source-separated collections also had to play as part of the infrastructure which he said had increasingly made the UK a successful model for materials recovery.

But, he claimed it was extraordinary that opponents of commingling were trying to block the approach, and added: The sectors behind these divisive and mis-informed campaigns should look long and hard at what they are trying to achieve – do they really want to take the industry back to the recovery rates we were achieving 10 years ago?

I see no quantifiable environmental or economic benefits attached to this stance, he added.

The comments from The Recycling Association and Viridor are the latest in support of Defras stance, following statements made by Biffa last week, while leading paper mills have also stressed they see commingling as having a role to play (see letsrecycle.com story).