ON a narrow country road near the village of Burham, in Kent, a lorry can be
seen most days slowly winding its way to a waste pit carved into a limestone
and chalk hillside. The cargo is a morass of plastics, bottles and cans that
should have been recycled but is now going for landfill.
The pit is operated by Aylesford Newsprint, a local company that only recycles
paper, and each year it reluctantly buries about 9,000 tons of plastics,
glass and metals. It is one of a number of companies which is dumping
materials put out by householders for recycling.
Chris White, its commercial manager, said the widespread practice of councils
collecting material for recycling in mixed bags meant his plant was
routinely sent batches of paper “contaminated” with bottles, plastic, cans
and even food residue. “It’s impossible to deal with plastics and other
materials here,” he said. “They go into a bin, are compacted and then it
goes off to landfill.”
As part of the government’s waste strategy unveiled last month, David
Miliband, the environment secretary, outlined plans to increase recycling
with a “pay as you throw” scheme.
Some councils, including Barnet and Southwark in London, are already
threatening householders with fines if they do not recycle.
Evidence uncovered by The Sunday Times shows that while residents face tough
action for not separating recyclables from general rubbish, many councils
are operating seriously flawed schemes. Many cannot even provide basic
information on where or how the raw materials they are collecting are being
recycled.
David Workman, chief executive of British Glass, said: “The councils are
operating under legislation which is geared to stop landfill and use
weight-based targets. They often don’t want to know what happens to material
but just want to get it off their hands.”
Local authorities in England collected around 25.5m tons of household waste in
2005-6, equivalent to about half a ton of household waste per person a year.
About 27% was recycled or composted, but the government is demanding
councils increase that figure to 50% by 2020.
The worst councils for recycling in 2004-5 were Newham, east London, which
sent 6.23% of domestic waste for recycling or compost, Tower Hamlets, also
in east London, at 7.35% and Liverpool at 7.63%.
The drive to increase the amount of household rubbish that is recycled has led
to a significant increase in “co-mingled” collections where householders put
paper, glass bottle, plastics and cans into one or two bags or boxes. The
material is then sent to a depot – known as a material recycling facility –
for sorting.
It is claimed these depots are routinely run at overcapacity because of the
pressure to hit government targets and regularly send out batches of
supposedly sorted materials that are “cross-contaminated” with other
packaging, cans or waste. Aylesford Newsprint and other recycling companies
have seen the amount of such “contaminants” increase significantly over the
past two years.
“Whenever it comes from one of these recovery facilities, it is often too bad
for us to use,” said White. “It’s dirty and usually mixed with plastic
bottles and cans. We can’t use those and they go to landfill.”
Aylesford Newsprint is among a number of companies supporting a Campaign for
Real Recycling, which is urging councils to sort the waste during kerbside
collections or to request householders to separate their own waste.
Industry leaders have been reluctant to speak out about the country’s flawed
recycling infrastructure for fear of undermining householders’ confidence in
collection schemes, but say the situation is now so serious that action must
be taken.
Andy Doran, national manager of Novelis Recycling, one of the world’s leading
companies in aluminium can recycling, said batches sent to his company from
English councils were often cross-contaminated and his company was resorting
to using imports for recycling.
“My company is prepared to pay several million pounds a year for aluminium
that is properly sorted and that opportunity is being lost by some local
authorities. Unless the situation improves, we will struggle to increase the
levels of recycling of UK material.”
Glass manufacturers are probably worst affected by the mixed recycling
collections. They say once clear glass has been smashed and mixed with
coloured glass and other materials and waste, it cannot be used to make new
bottles and jars and is commonly used as road aggregate or sent for landfill.
Nigel Keenlyside, of Berryman, Britain’s biggest glass recyclers, said: “If
you put rubbish in, you get rubbish out. Increasingly we are not getting the
quality to make new bottles and jars and it’s being rejected and sent for
roadfill.”
Keenlyside said householders who wanted to support sustainable glass recycling
should check councils were using sorted collections, in which coloured and
clear glass were collected in separate batches at the kerbside. “If not,
the risk is it will go for roadfill and our advice is that you are better
off using the local bottle bank,” he said.
Other materials sent for landfill include some plastic containers, such as
yoghurt tubs and margarine cartons, which are very difficult to recycle in
the UK. Barry Keeling, UK sales manager for Centriforce, a Liverpool company
that recycles plastic bottles, said: “It’s a misunderstanding as to what can
be recycled in this country. Lots of local authorities want us to recycle
all the plastics – your yoghurt pot, your butter dish and sandwich wrapping
– and we can’t use those.”
So what is happening to all these mixed plastics, which are collected by about
10% of local authorities? Recoup, which promotes plastic recycling in the
UK, said it had asked all local authorities in England and Wales how they
were recycling these mixed plastics and the “large majority either did not
know or did not specify”.
Most are likely to be shipped overseas for recycling, but even if they are
ultimately burnt, buried or discarded, they will contribute to the council’s
landfill and recycling targets.
India, China and Indonesia have also been regularly used as a market for mixed
batches of materials for recycling that would be rejected by British
processors. It is estimated about 10m tons of domestic and commercial
rubbish is now being shipped abroad for recycling.
Random checks by the Environment Agency on 350 ship containers that were meant
to contain sorted materials for recycling found about half were contaminated
with other waste. Liz Parkes, head of waste at the agency, said: “We had
containers that had nappies in and a container which exploded at the port
because of the methane that had built up from rotting waste.”
The Waste and Resources Action Programme (Wrap), which works with councils and
businesses to increase recycling, believes mixed collections offer a
practical solution to recycling in some areas but accepts there is a problem
in some depots with contamination and said there was work to resolve this.
The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs said that where
councils used mixed collections, it was in their commercial interest to
ensure the material could be sold to reprocessors. The Local Government
Association said: “There are many examples of excellent recycling schemes by
councils but there is still a lot to do.”
Additional reporting: Roger Waite
Recycling abroad
Switzerland Proportion of household waste recycled: 60%. Most
householders pay €1 for every bag they throw away. Recycling is free and is
collected house-to-house in sorted batches or transported to collection
points
Germany Proportion of household waste recycled: 57%. Home collection
service for recycling
United States Proportion of household waste recycled: 32%. Relies on
material recovery facilities to separate and sort
UK Proportion of household waste recycled: 27%. More than half recycled
domestic waste is collected by roadside schemes. Some households are
required to sort materials
Singapore Proportion of household waste recycled: more than 20%.
Singapore incinerates up to 90% of waste for electricity, promotes recycling
with door-to-door collections
Wasting resources
Glass bottles Often badly sorted by councils and used as roadfill
Cans Aluminium cans worth more than £800 a tonne are often rejected
Paper ‘Mixed bag’ collections are often of a poor quality
Plastic bottles Easily recycled in UK if collected properly
Mixed plastic Rarely recycled in UK. Usually sent overseas or even
dumped
