News in brief 11/12/15
New Materials Recycling Facility for Methyr Tydfil
A new Materials Recycling Facility (MRF) has been completed for Methyr Tydfil County Borough Council to support the council’s new kerbside recycling strategy.
The MRF, in the village of Pentrebach, is a raised sorting system, which is designed to handle a tonne (1,000kg) of mixed household plastics and metal waste per hour. It contains systems designed to remove ferrous and non-ferrous metals in addition to a bottle perforator and is expected to handle approximately 5,000 tonnes of recyclate per year.
Completed by Middleton Engineering, specialists in the baler and recycling industry, the MRF has been designed to produce high quality recyclate with metal contamination levels of one per cent or less. The sorting solution requires a minimum of two manual pickers to remove oversize and unwanted materials prior to the automatic sorting area, eliminating the need for a picking station.
Paper and card, which arrive at the site presorted, can be compacted and baled using the ‘Twin Ram Baler’. This produces uniform baled waste in an easy to handle and transport form, which is then ready for sale and shipping to individual processors.
Paul Davies, Waste Operations Manager at Merthyr Tydfil commented: “With new waste recycling targets across the whole of Wales, our new MRF at Pentrebach is crucial to supporting Merthyr Tydfil’s kerbside recycling strategy and minimising waste to landfill.”
Mark Smith, Engineering Director at Middleton Engineering said: “Taking on board the council’s requirements, we provided a solution that focuses on minimizing vehicle movements, to produce an efficient separation and baling system within quite a small footprint.”
More information Merthyr Tydfil’s waste service can be found on the council’s website.
Recycled laptops to help London’s homeless
A new initiative from social enterprise Socialbox.biz will aim to improve the prospects of homeless and marginalised people by providing them with refurbished laptops and training. The ‘Laptops for Homeless Support’ initiative will be run in partnership with homelessness charity Thames Reach.
An estimated two million working computers are scrapped every year according to Peter Paduh, Chairman of Socialbox.biz. The priority of the London-based company, who provide recycling solutions for business, is to turn unwanted laptop computers into a value resource for the local community.
Many companies, it states, replace older laptops with the latest technology before they stop working. Socialbox arranges for these computers to be refurbished and donates some to organisations, such as Thames Reach, allowing homeless people to speak to friends and relatives and improve their skills and employment prospects.
Paduh said: “Society is becoming ever more dependent on computerised technologies, but thousands of people are still with no access to this vital resource and as a consequence living in social and digital exclusion here in London.”
Jeremy Swain Chief Executive of Thames Reach London said: “Our Employment Academy is helping thousands of unemployed and economically disadvantaged people in the capital and the partnership with Socialbox will enable us to help even more people.”
More information on the ‘Laptops for Homeless Support’ can be found at the Socialbox.biz website.
Map of zero waste municipalities launched by Zero Waste Europe
European towns moving towards zero waste have been highlighted in a ‘Zero Waste Cities’ map launched at the ‘Zero Waste: A Key Solution Pathway for a low carbon future’ conference in Paris.
The interactive map, launched by Zero Waste Europe (ZWE) on 3 December, aims to increase the visibility and accountability of towns swapping the ‘recycle, burn and bury’ paradigm for the new zero waste ‘rethink, reduce, reuse and recycle’ motto.
More than 300 municipalities from seven countries have joined the Zero Waste network since Capannori became the first European municipality to adopt the goal of zero waste in 2008. At the conference, San Francisco (USA), Alapuza (India), Ljubljana (Slovenia) and Treviso (Italy) were recognised by ZWE as outstanding in their implementation of zero waste strategies.
Joan Marc Simon, Director of ZWE, said: “The network of European zero waste municipalities embodies the ambition that we miss in the Circular Economy proposal from the European Commission; some towns are already above 80 per cent recycling and many others know they want to get there in less than 10 years. We look forward to welcoming new cities to the network.”
Referring to the European Commission’s Circular Economy Package, which was released last week with reduced recycling targets after taking a year to create a 'more ambitious' proposal, Simon said: “[European Commission First Vice-President] Timmermans said that ambition means realism to justify lower recycling targets. These examples show that his decision has more to do with lack of political ambition than realistic technical feasibility.”
More information about Zero Waste Europe can be found on the organisation’s website.
Lavazza and Novamont join forces in Paris
Coffee manufacturer Lavazza and bio-based material producer Novamont have announced that they will become partners of Shamengo, an environmental non-governmental organisation that researches, supports and develops solutions for an environmentally-friendly future.
The announcement was made at COP21, the Paris-based global climate conference due to end today (11 December).
Partnership in Shamengo will follow on from work the two companies have already carried out to research innovative and sustainable solutions. This year, after a five-year research and development project, the two released a compostable coffee capsule. The capsule is made from MATER-BI, a 100 per cent compostable bioplastic.
Consumers are able to dispose of both the content (coffee grounds) and the capsule together with food waste, enabling recycling of a product that would otherwise have been sent to landfill, making a significant contribution to reducing emissions.
The compostable capsule represents part of Lavazza’s Life Cycle Thinking approach to increase measures of sustainability within its operations.
Time capsule buried at new Liverpool recycling centre
The centre is due to open on 21 December and was built by Cheetham Hill Construction Ltd who, in conjunction with the 22nd St David’s Brownies Liverpool Unit, helped organise and bury the time capsule.
The time capsule, which will remain buried for 25 years, includes details of how the centre was planned and built, a list of the current top 10 books, a newspaper and a Brownie environmental badge amongst other items.
Other community projects organised by MRWA have included a recycling fashion show, workshops and a musical performance at the Museum of Liverpool, to help the new Recycling Centre achieve the environmental and sustainability CEEQUAL Award.
Councillor Graham Morgan, Chairperson of MRWA said the Brownies had the idea of working with the Waste Authority and added: “If you think about how much has changed since 1990, especially in the waste management industry, it’s just as interesting to consider what changes may have occurred in 25 years’ time.”
Helen Bell of St David’s Brownies said: “From the fashion show and workshops to the time capsule itself, our girls have had a lot of fun and learned a lot about recycling and re-use!”
More information on the MWRA can be found on the authority’s website.
Council searches for fly-tippers after nineteen tonnes of rubbish dumped in Leeds
Leeds City Council’s North East Locality Team commented on Facebook that the infringement at the old Primrose High School site was not due to local people dumping waste. It is instead ‘mainly commercial waste, probably from clearances of privately rented properties’.
It added that it hopes to prosecute those responsible and recover the cost to the council of clearing up the waste.
Leeds City Council has reportedly received 13,000 complaints of flytipping in the last year, according to the Yorkshire Evening Post. They are now increasing prosecutions in a bid to cut down similar crimes in the community.
Councillor Mark Dobson, Leeds City Council’s Executive Member for Environmental Protection and Community Safety, said: “This has been a serious, deliberate act to avoid any kind of duty of care. We don’t think it’s fair that the council or our residents should have to foot the bill for someone else’s laziness and attempt to get out of paying disposal costs. We’d urge anyone with any evidence or information that will help us catch the culprits to contact us as soon as possible.”
More information on flytipping in Leeds can be found at the council’s website.
