Recycle Week 2017

This week is Recycle Week! Monday 27th September 2017 marks the start of national Recycle Week which runs until 1st October.

The initiative is based on WRAP’s (Waste Resources Action Plan) Recycle Week – It’s Worth It! theme.

Every year, the theme of Recycle Week is based on the insights gained from WRAP’s annual recycling tracker. This year, trends have shown that the UK general public would like to know more about what their recycling materials get turned into. Each day of the campaign focuses on a different material and what they can be recycled back into – including items that people think cannot be recycled, such as shampoo bottles and aerosol cans.

The Environment Agency has published the latest waste data from 2000 – 2016.

UK waste trends 2000 – 2016

The data shows that the UK will run out of landfill capacity within 7 years, based on current trends in waste disposal.

There has been a steady increase in the number of treatment plants such as Material Recycling Facilities (MRFs), Anaerobic Digestion (AD) plants and Waste to Energy incineration plants and others opening. The data also show that the number of metal recycling sites accepting scrap is decreasing. In 2016 there were 1,244 metal recycling sites accepting waste, 46 fewer than 2014.

Today (20th March 2017) marks the start of Keep Britain Tidy‘s nationwide campaign against fly-tipping #CrimeNotToCare. The campaign aims to highlight the fact that 47% of people don’t know that they are legally responsible if someone fly-tips their waste.

Waste figures released by the government in March reveal a huge 930,000 separate recorded incidents of fly-tipping in the UK. More than two thirds of fly-tips involve household waste and the number of white goods fly-tipped has more than tripled since 2012/13 to 48,674.

fly tipped waste on dis-used land in Oldham

With recent budget cuts, local authorities are looking for ways to be more cost effective in service provision. Councils including Hampshire, Derbyshire and Surrey (£50 per car load if materials are loose) are beginning to charge for DIY wastes and other difficult wastes. Devon County Council currently charge £2 per bag of soil and rubble. Several councils have announced new charges for DIY wastes at Household Waste Recycling Centres. Kirklees council are refusing bags of soil and rubble wastes at the gates.

Kirklees tip permits have been up and running for awhile now and residents have had since 11th July 2016 to get used to the system.

If you’ve still not registered you can do so on the Kirklees tip permits website here. There are some restrictions such as small vans (less than 3 tonnes) and cars with trailers are only allowed in 12 times a year.

(C) Huddersfield Examiner – Registration required!

The following vehicles can’t be used at Kirklees tip sites: box type vans, vans exceeding 3 tonnes, flat-bed vehicles, pick-ups (excluding 4x4s), minibuses, horse boxes and agricultural vehicles.