IT'S GLOBAL RECYCLING DAY 2018

IT'S GLOBAL RECYCLING DAY FOLKS - SUNDAY 18TH MARCH 218
So it would be rude not to take a look at Derby City Council who are busily promoting this day on their twitter feed.
Let's take a look at the city and its recent exposure on the BBC News website regarding the fall in recycling in 14 million homes in the UK.
When considering league tables usually the higher you, your team OR in this case your local council are towards the top of the league this is considered better - its the target.  But when that league table is a table of FAILING councils and in this case the decline in the councils ability to recycle the last thing you want is to be at the top of your league!

In recent weeks the BBC has published an article about household waste recycling rates

 

RECYCLING RATE FALLS FOR 14 MILLION HOMES IN ENGLAND!

 

 

This is an in depth report into the fall in recycling rates in England and can be read here

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-43197454

 

What the article highlights is that Derby - the home of this blog had the 2nd biggest decline in recycling between 2011/12 and 2016/17 and the articles graph on this subject is reproduced here please visit the link above to read the full story.

 

Source - BBC NEWS

 

What this shows is that Derby came second only to Hartlepool when it came to the collapse in recycling. If the data was pushed back to 2010/11 that collapse would be even greater. For a wider look at recycling rates in Derby the image below sets out recycling right back to 2005/6.

 

 

What the graph above shows is that the 2016/17 recycling rate was actually lower than the 2007/8 rate for recycling meaning in the course of the last nine years in Derby UK we got nowhere!

The BBC article reports how Derby city council stated-

"its recycling rates had fallen after it made changes to its recycling collection services in 2014, but said rates had increased in the past two years.

It said it had taken away "kerbside blue bin recycling" from some areas of the city "due to high levels of contamination" but was "reaching out" to people who had put the non-recyclable rubbish in the wrong bin."

 

The reality is that the councils recycling service started to decline after a peak of 48% in 2010/11 which was prior to changes made by the council.

The introduction of a controversial garden waste charge scheme led to high volumes of previously recycled garden and food waste being diverted into the residual black bin. Recycling rates are based on weight and so garden and food waste play a key part in recycling schemes.

Although this slaughtered the councils recycling rate they also removed recycling from large areas of the city claiming residents contaminated their recycling bins. The BBC article implies that the council said it was reaching out to people who had put the non recyclable rubbish in the wrong bin.

It is not clear what the council is trying to do by making such claims - a recent FOI / EIR request confirmed that circa 9,000 properties did not have a kerbside recycling collection and it should also be noted that the bring sites installed as replacements are being removed due to them becoming fly tip grot spots. The council removed the blue bin recycling service - they are not reaching out to anyone and recently refused my requests for the service to be returned to the communities now new Public Protection Officers are working in the city to address bins on streets etc

You can read more about that here

http://derby-waste-a-rubbish-blog.blogspot.co.uk/2017/11/recycling-now-is-time-to-give-it-back.html  

 

It may be #GlobalRecyclingDay but here in Derby UK the council is top of the league in excuses as to WHY their recycling is so poor. 

 

 

 

 ©SIMON BACON 2018

Recycling! now is the time to give it back!

My previous blog post placed focus on the two faces of recycling in Derby UK.

On the one hand as Zero Waste Week was taking place the council was using social media to project an image of its recycling success while at the same time hundreds if not thousands of Derby residents in areas such as Normanton and Arboretum ward had had their kerbside recycling service removed a few years back. EIR / FOI data shows there are actually around 9,000 properties without a blue bin recycling service in the city. 

You can read more about the two faces of Derby recycling here-

 http://derby-waste-a-rubbish-blog.blogspot.co.uk/2017/09/the-two-faces-of-recycling-in-derby-uk.html

The importance of recycling cannot be ignored - both from a sustainability aspect and a financial aspect as it is so much cheaper to recycle than to send waste to landfill or incineration.
The removal of recycling in the city was carried out for some questionable reasons in recent years and one thought is that this was an attempt to procure a feedstock for the controversial Sinfin waste gasification incineration plant in the city which is due to start operation soon.
They failed to address recycling contamination issues in those areas, left recycling bins festering for weeks if not months and then claimed contamination was a serious issue.
Contamination IS a serious issue if you do not address the issue!
The councils answer was to remove the service - quite convenient when you need to procure waste to burn!
What happened was they convinced other Derby residents that residents in the areas in question either didn't care or were to stupid to understand how to recycle!
The council was then able to sweep away the blue bin recycling service in many streets even though it was shown via FOI that they had no evidence to justify the service removal when the council targeted my own street - thankfully in my case they did not remove the service.
Replacement bring sites were put in place finally to provide some form of service for those who wanted to recycle.
What they actually did was install prime fly tip hot spots such as this one at Grove Street carpark in the Arboretum ward.

One of the saddest sights I have seen at a recycling site in recent times was a bag of plastic recyclables left at the bring site above which will have had no chance of being recycled because the bins were full and fly tipping surrounded the site.
The fact someone went to this trouble shows people care! The note on the bag says PLASTIC.

 

With the bring sites becoming quite a state 2-3 of the sites were removed by the council - once again condemning residents to having no recycling service.

This prompted me to put a question to the council cabinet member for waste Cllr Asaf Afzal at a recent Full Council meeting in the city regarding bring site provision. 

 

Question from Simon Bacon to Councillor Afzal

The city council removed the bring recycling site on Havelock Road in Normanton due to fly tip issues. This means that local residents have no ability to recycle their rubbish. When will the city council be replacing this bring site with an alternative site in that area of the community?

 

As you have mentioned these sites have attracted fly tipping. The council do not intend to replace any of the bring sites with alternative sites due to the costs and resources needed to maintain them.

From this we can see that the council does not care that their residents have had their ability to recycle removed as it is a case of - no its gone and your not getting it back!

But in recent months the council has done something positive which is to finally listen to local people who pushed for fly tip and wheeled bin enforcement in the city.
Enforcement of the wheeled bins - where residents are issued section 46 notices advising them that they can only have their waste bins in the streets at specific times.
In my view one of the biggest issues with bins on streets is the fact that this led to recycling bins being contaminated - as people passing in the street used them as normal bins for litter or fly tippers made use of the fact they could place whole bags of mixed waste in the bins.

 

So considering that the council now had staff in place to improve the street scene by targeting bins on streets but also importantly that these same staff were engaging with residents what better time could there be to use the enforcement staff to provide information on recycling at the same time they engaged with residents about their bins - an all in one process which would both address bins on streets and recycling contamination issues.

 once carried out in an area it would seem sensible to put back in place the blue bin recycling scheme due to the reduced risk of bin contamination and the fact that recycling is so much cheaper

.

So the question had to be posed!

Question from Simon Bacon to Councillor Afzal

With the successful work being carried out by the councils new Community Protection Officers to remove bins off streets in areas such as Normanton, will the council now return the blue bin recycling service to the streets targeted by the CPOs due to the reduced risk of bin contamination?

The contamination levels of the blue bins were very high. It is the council's intention not to return the blue bin recycling scheme to these areas as it proved expensive to operate and administer.

 

 

What we have is a council that for some reason does not want to recycle! its recycling rate has collapsed in recent years and surely the return of a service taking us back in the right direction - A CHEAPER SERVICE should be the way forward.

©SIMON BACON 2017

Would you like flies with that?

After a number of years use and ownership by Transcycle - including acting as a hub for the city of Derby's brown bin recycling scheme where garden and food waste was bulked up for shipment to Vital Earth at Ashbourne for composting number 201 Slack Lane in the New Zealand / Mackworth area of the city was placed on the market.

The community have had issues with the site in the past as sited in an inner city area odour and fly issues were always likely to be on residents minds. Few likely noted the small article in the Derby Telegraph in the late summer of 2015 reporting that a new company was moving to Derby from Nottingham and was known as Go 4 Greener Waste Management. Taking on the 2.6 acre site the company owned by Wayne and Sam Turton was described as a business providing a range of recycling services.

Deeds logged with the land registry indicate the Turton's are owners of the site having paid £850,000 in July 2015 with the support of Barclays Bank.

While described in the media at the time as offering recycling services the companies website talks of zero waste to landfill - which to those in anti incineration circles means sending waste to incineration plants in either the UK or Europe. The Go 4 Greener twitter account in the past made reference to agreeing waste disposal contracts with AEB Amsterdam - a major incinerator of waste so it is clear that the company does not just handle specific recyclables but clearly has an interest in waste of a more residual nature - but then that needs to be shipped in some fashion to the likes of AEB Amsterdam. Tweets from 2014 show their engagement with AEB Amsterdam.

This then brings us to the issue that has unfolded in the streets and homes of the Mackworth community in recent weeks and months. While buzzing along under the radar for some time in recent weeks a serious fly outbreak has blighted the community bringing misery and distress to all around including major impacts on the Kingsway Retail Park leading to store closures.
Many pages of the complex story of what has happened and who is to blame have been printed or reported in recent weeks with fingers being pointed in different directions by different parties.
Without a copy of the waste permit it is not possible to identify what the site should and should not handle but what we do know is that the waste permit itself is registered not to Go 4 Greener but to another company owned by the Turton's known as Shows Waste Management which was launched in 2015. Waste permits are the life blood of a waste site - it is what allows the process to take place and these permits are issued by the Environment Agency.
The Turton's via the media appear to be suggesting that the issues relating to the flies on the site and the surrounding area are due to who they call Envirofuels / Trent Valley Recycling who it is claimed they leased part of the site to although the media report that the companies in question deny these claims.
Independent news reporter Derby News recently published an article on the waste saga shedding light on company ownership and the article can be found here
https://derbynews.org.uk/2016/05/27/mackworth-fly-infestation-convenient-confusion-over-whos-to-blame/

The facts with this situation are all pretty murky as to who is responsible for the waste in question but suggestions are circulating that issues with the site were raised at a residents meeting as far back as February 2016 and if this is the case potentially dates back beyond the involvement with these companies. This is backed up by the fact the Environment Agency issued an order against Shows Waste Management on March 10th 2016 which is before Trent Valley Recycling signed the agreement to use the site.
This has led to the site being filled with large bales on the site of what could potentially be refuse derived fuel - known as RDF - shown below.

 

As to what the bales actually contain and their intended destination if they are in fact RDF bales then they could have been produced by either one of the Turton's companies - noting their connections to incineration plants in Holland or that of fledgling company Enviro Fuels Solutions Ltd who appear to be the company the Turton's are referring to.

What is becoming clear is that neither Derby City Council or the Environment Agency are making Shows Waste Management deal with the waste in the time scale locals need to get the fly infestation under control. In recent days a representative of the Environment Agency on East Midlands Today appeared to be implying that in part the issue was linked to homes being built around the site but anyone who knows the area knows that many of the local homes date back decades and in some cases around a century.

The Go 4 Greener website makes some grand claims about the companies ethos so lets hope they stand by them in the coming weeks and deal with the situation that is playing our in the city of Derby.

 

 

There are many unanswered questions in this terrible situation but one that makes you stop and wonder is the following.

 

If you run a waste company and have spent £850,000 on a site and you have an active waste permit in your companies name placing you in the position of overall control and therefore liability why would you risk your business by allowing the serious situation to develop on the site which is now causing such local distress and directly placing your business and family life at risk?

If as suggested in the media there is 5,000 tonnes of waste that needs to be landfilled based just on the landfill tax rate of £84.40 the Turton's face a bill of over £400,000 for disposal of the waste mountain.

 

The latest twist to the saga is that the Environment Agency have started legal action against companies on the site in relation to the waste. How this will pan out is anyone's guess but things need to improve soon for the good of the local community.

 

©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

 

The S.S.A.I.N press release - 22nd Aug 2014

DERBY UK 22^ND AUG 2014 – RESPONSE TO DERBY CITY AND COUNTY COUNCIL PRESS RELEASE OF 21^ST AUG 2014

 

SINFIN INEFFICIENT WASTE INCINERATION PLANT BACKED BY SO CALLED GREEN INVESTMENT BANK GETS GO AHEAD

As the recycling rate of Derby City Council enters an ever steeper decline with the implementation of a £40 garden waste tax news broke on 21^st of August that the councils of Derby and Derbyshire have reached closure on a controversial waste incineration plant to be constructed in an area of poor health and deprivation in the heart of Sinfin in the city of Derby.

Sited on an ex tannery and landfill http://derby-waste-a-rubbish-blog.blogspot.co.uk/2014_05_01_archive.html currently subject to local concern regarding anthrax site contamination risking health both on and off site the controversial waste incineration plant has been successfully delayed by campaigners concerned about health impacts from the billion cubic metres of emissions per year from the plant along with the threat of wide spread combustion in the plant of materials which could and should be recycled. This was confirmed in the recent Derbyshire County Council waste draft strategy document on page 16 where it is noted 47% of residual waste in Derbyshire is recyclable waste. http://www.derbyshire.gov.uk/images/Dealing%20with%20Derbyshires%20Waste%20Draft%20Strategy_tcm44-234569.pdf

In a bizarre twist supported by Vince Cable the UK Green Investment Bank (GIB) has agreed to invest £64 million in the project even though the plant destroys potentially recyclable material and was show at the 2^nd Derby public inquiry to be in its standard electricity only mode an inefficient waste disposal incineration plant which fails to meet the requirements of the R1 formula test of plant efficiency. It is not clear why a green investment bank would invest in such an inefficient plant. The council’s developer – Resource Recovery Solutions has at no point shown any evidence of local customer demand for heat and steam from the plant which would allow the plant to become an R1 compliant recovery facility. It therefore languishes on the bottom tier of the waste hierarchy in disposal.

The council press release implied that any recyclable materials would be extracted at the plant however no documents were put forward at either planning or at either public inquiry showing this to be the case – only that which would not burn would be extracted.

The councils of Derby and Derbyshire are very enthusiastic for the Sinfin plant to go ahead. In the case of Derbyshire County Council this is because they get their rubbish burnt on someone else’s door step and in the case of both councils they will be rewarded for procuring the correct feedstock – as shown in the waste contract with highly lucrative Renewable Obligation Certificates known as ROC’s. It is not clear why such an inefficient plant that sits at the bottom of the waste hierarchy will be rewarded for its failure to be efficient at energy generation and this opens the door for similar inefficient plants to be constructed across the UK. A legacy of the Green Investment Bank will be waste forced down the waste hierarchy with the claims of green energy and sustainable waste management while the reality is large volumes of combustion emissions will be pumped into a poor city community, resources will be destroyed and lives ruined – all in the name of green energy.

SIMON BACON

CHAIRMAN

SINFIN, SPONDON AND ALL AGAINST INCINERATION (S.S.A.I.N)

EMAIL S.S.A.I.N via ssainderby@aol.com

Twitter @ssainderby

END

©SIMON BACON 2016