The two faces of recycling in Derby UK

The recycling rate for Derby UK in recent years has been pretty dire! since the removal of the free garden and food waste recycling scheme and its replacement with just a simple paid for garden waste scheme the recycling rate went into freefall! pushed on yet further by removal of recycling services completely in some areas of the city due to claims of bin contamination.

When the council caught on to the fact that residents were monitoring the recycling rate via council cabinet documents they promptly removed the data from the council cabinet score cards!

The council is to some degree pegging its hopes on a claimed 7-8% recycling rate at the controversial Sinfin, Derby incineration plant where rigid plastics and metals are to be extracted for recycling before the rest is burnt - but until that site is up and running that material is out of reach.

 

With Recycle Week on the way Derby City Council on social media are putting on a recycling face such as here on Facebook!

 

 

In a similar vein on Twitter they are also putting forward a green front

 

 

With Zero Waste week here the council is also promoting that on Twitter

 

 

Has the council had a road to Damascus change of heart regarding recycling or is it just a cynical ploy to make it look like recycling matters to them?

 

But what are the realities for some residents living in the city?

The council drive to recycle isn't always all it is cracked up to be!

Vast areas of the city had their blue bin recycling scheme removed when the council said residents were contaminating their recycling bins.

 The pitiful replacement bring sites the council has installed have simply become fly tip hotspots.

This site on Havelock Road in Normanton ward rapidly became a fly tip hot spot

 

 

So the council removed it - meaning residents totally lost their ability to recycle -
 NO ALTERNATIVE HAS BEEN PROVIDED.

 



 

On a similar theme at Grove Street in the Arboretum ward the council also installed a fly tip hot spot

and if the council doesn't empty the recycling site when full what message does it send to the public?

 

 

Some residents care enough to gather their plastics and even mark the bags as plastics in a vain hope that what they are taking to the recycling site will be successfully recycled.

 

 

Meanwhile over in Hampden Street, Normanton bin contamination led to rejected bins - but at no point in the six weeks that three blue bins sat festering on the street did the councils bin men tag the bins as contaminated!

 then all of a sudden the bin men emptied two of the bins even though they still contained the same level of contamination that must have led to their rejection.

 

 

So the social media front is of a council looking to promote recycling -

 something that they have not gone out of their way to do in recent times but out on the street residents who feel they have a right to recycle still suffer a 2nd class service with random bring sites that are then either removed or simply not maintained to a high standard.

In some cases residents do not even get a 2nd class service -

 

THEY GET NO SERVICE

 

 

©SIMON BACON 2017

Last one out DONT turn the lights off!

When the 55 meter chimney stack was installed on the Resource Recovery Solutions waste incineration plant it was lit up like a replacement for Christmas fairy lights!

When asked why so much lighting was required on the stack Resource Recovery Solutions representatives stated it was required by East Midlands Airport - who had the final say due to local aviation issues.

In recent weeks however there has been a serious issue with the stacks lighting system leading to the stack being unlit in the hours of darkness! This directly placed aviation at risk so it was important to raise this with the developer and its contractors.

Below is an image of the plant taken from Sainsburys car park showing the stack unlit.

In a article in the Derby Telegraph published after the event it was suggested that lighting of the stack - at 180 feet was not mandatory but the CAA and East Midlands Airport advice is that the stack should be lit in the hours or darkness and poor weather.

You can read more here

 http://www.derbytelegraph.co.uk/Safety-lights-huge-Derby-chimney-stack-night/story-29158546-detail/story.html#CqH8vw2mrxSJHCrr.01

It was noted that there had been an intermittent fault reported in the day on the Wednesday and Thursday, if so this situation raises some serious questions in relation to safe management of the site when we consider that the site has 24 hour security.

Did the security guard monitor the stacks lighting - considering it was known there had been faults?

Surely the security guard would notice that the large stack was unlit! after all it did dominate the site and glow a menacing red shade!

It calls into question the developers ability to run a safe site when something as serious as this is able to happen over a number of days and takes so long to address.

 

©SIMON BACON 2016

 

A game of tag thats tag the recycling bin!

When it comes to waste disposal in Derby UK there can be nothing worse than going out to fetch your bin in only to find the green tag of doom attached to the lid!

 

 

 

This is the tag that the council binmen attach to your bin if you have done something wrong - you may have overfilled it or you may have made it to heavy or you may have put things in you shouldn't. Don't expect the bin man to mark what the issue is - you are expected to guess what the problem is.

 

Back in 2014 I published another blog post that focused on the proposal to remove kerbside collections from areas of the city due to claims of contamination which can be viewed here http://derby-waste-a-rubbish-blog.blogspot.co.uk/2014/12/the-decay-of-recycling-in-derby.html 

 

My blog has highlighted media coverage on the subject where kerbside collections were removed in areas such as Mackworth, Arboretum and Normanton wards of the city. The justification was that bins were contaminated leading to rejection of loads by Biffa the councils recycling provider. When I exposed that loads were not being rejected shortly afterwards Biffa conveniently started rejecting material.

Back in September 2014 my FOI request number 6346 showed that the contamination rate for the city was less than 6% at 5.8% and is shown below.

 

"How many loads of blue bin recyclables have been rejected by your contractor BIFFA at its Victory Road sorting facility in 2013/14

ANSWER: None, rejects are taken out during the sorting process. The average percentage of rejected material from the start of the new blue bin collection system on June 4^th 2013 to 31^st March 2014 was 5.8% "

NOW REMEMBER THAT PERCENTAGE - 5.8% CONTAMINATION FOR LATER !

     Where blue bin kerbside recycling was removed the replacement service - a restricted set of bring sites just became prime hot spots for fly tipping as shown below.

 

In recent weeks once again the council bin men in the Normanton ward of the city have been tagging bins in the streets. Some for lids being left up - where people try and recycle to much !

 

 

Others for questionable amounts of incorrect materials in the bins - or contamination to use the councils words. What the council misses is when tagging the bins they put that bin into limbo. The resident doesn't not know what they have done wrong because the council does not identify the actual issue but the council also will not empty the bin until the issue is addressed. What happens is we end up blighting communities with bins in limbo where the residents don't sort the issue and the council doesn't act. Is that really the way forward to improve recycling in the city - which has crashed to around 33%?

 





The council cabinet member when challenged on the extended tagging of bins in Normanton said that officers would look into it and empty those tagged in error but that they needed to maintain their stance on quality of material collected - siting recent load rejection by its contractor Biffa. I have not seen any bins being reviewed in this way.

So the council have removed kerbside blue bin collections from many streets in a number of communities to help reduce recycling contamination. Lets just remember that contamination rate for 2013/14 - 5.8% so what is it now ? remove the poor recyclers and surely that rate improves further.

 

ERRRR NO!

its now

16%

 

SO IT HAS INCREASED BY OVER 10%

This is confirmed in an email last week from the cabinet member for waste Councillor Asaf Afzal where he states

"Over the last 3 reporting quarters the average contamination was 16 per cent. "

 

CLEARLY THE COUNCIL DOES NOT HAVE A GRIP ON RECYCLING IN THE CITY.

 



 



©SIMON BACON 2016

 

Bins on streets - Section 46 can help !

One of the most important waste related things we all need as residents is a successful waste disposal system that manages waste sustainably. A disposal system needs to be easy to understand and simple to take part in when we as residents are expected to recycle our waste - as we should do. We create the waste so it is only right that we dispose of it safely and correctly. The trouble is some of us either don't understand the process of waste disposal - recycling being a prime example or we don't want to take part at all - we just like to consume and dump, consume and dump day in day out.
If people don't understand the concept of recycling or simply don't care this can cause a number of issues. It can lead to bins being left unemptied if they contain items that should not be there. It can lead to lower value recyclate being gathered which may not impact on our council at first but long term can impact on values nationally and any falling price in recycling is a bad place to be because in the end that fall in prices finds its way back to the council via higher gate fees etc.

Where bins are left on streets - be it a contaminated recycling bin, an empty recycling bin or simply just a residual waste bin this situation drags a community down. A street full of bins degrades a community causing a blight by blocking pavements, attracting side waste and fly tipping, all aspects we don't want to experience as residents in our community. This is a very common issue in Derby in a number of wards including Normanton, Arboretum and Abbey to name just three. Sometimes residents have legitimate reasons for leaving bins on the streets such as lack of access to a rear garden. Sometimes the street is the only place for the bin in such cases but the council needs to confirm this is actually the case and not simply a lazy excuse. The council should also work to address access issues where possible - for example by clearing blocked alleyways or reviewing issues such as rights of access issues where a resident has blocked the ability of others to access properties from the rear by building fencing or planting hedging.
There is one government act known as the Environmental Protection Act 1990 which gives councils the power if they choose to make residents remove bins from the street outside set collection periods. Section 46 of the act which focuses on household waste collection gives councils the power to set out times when it is acceptable to place bins on the street and allows for action to be taken if bins are in place outside this period. For Some reason Derby City Council are not using that ability and so the streets of Normanton, Arboretum, Abbey, Mackworth and other wards are left with streets full of bins which leads to recycling bin contamination and fly tipping.
Is there a political will in Derby to use such powers or do those in power favour a cluttered street scene over making the electorate take responsibility for their waste disposal bins.

©SIMON BACON 2016