Recycling Roundup 18th March

Recycling Roundup 18^th March

A new recycling centre has opened in Peterborough but there are still concerns about falling recycling rates. Councillors heard at a committee meeting that the overall recycling rate is down from 43.3% last year, to 42.77% currently. A councillor pointed out that the recycling rate was 48% 20 years ago, and that was when barely any of today’s sophisticated recycling technology existed. The councillor responsible for waste and street scene responded that it’s aim of achieving 50% recycling in the coming months was still possible and that the longer term goal was to turn recycling waste that would have previously gone to landfill into energy that the town could use.

Another councillor raised the issue of recycling contamination and said that there is still considerable confusion about what people can and can’t put in their recycling and garden waste bins. Contamination with food waste is an ongoing problem in Peterborough.

The council said that its website had been updated to let residents know exactly what can and can’t be recycled currently. It has also given residents advice about what to do if their recycling bin is full. It said that recycling can be put in a sealed plastic waste sack and left next to their recycling bin for collection.

Suez Recycling and Recovery UK has written to residents living near its planned £300 million energy recovery centre in Darwen, Blackburn to allay concerns about its impact on those living nearby. Residents and councillors had raised concerns about the impact that the heavy lorries going to and from the centre would have on local roads.

The concerns were raised during a public consultation, and the company promises that they will be addressed in the detailed planning application that they are set to submit to the council at the end of the month.

The plant will convert millions of bags of general waste into steam and electricity, and save 500,000 tonnes of waste from landfill each year in the process. Suez say that 50 jobs will also be created if the plans are approved.

A council in Ireland has been criticised for wasting paper after it produced an Irish-language leaflet publicising the launch of its recycling guide, and sent it out to residents whose first language is not Gaelic!

Mid Ulster District Council sent out the information to coincide with an Irish Language Festival, but it has come under fire from opposition councillors. One councillor said that it was ludicrous to send an Irish language leaflet out in an area where nobody speaks Gaelic as a first language. He added that rather than educating people to recycle, the leaflet is just unnecessary waste. The council hit back, stating that the leaflet was only printed in small quantities and that it was available in nine other languages.