Cylch Criticises Carmarthenshire Recycling Scheme

Cylch, a Wales Community Recycling Network, has come forward to criticise Carmarthenshire County Council’s decision to change from source-separated kerbside collections to a commingled system. The change may not be pleasing to the residents of Carmarthenshire since the commingled system is not the cheapest option.
Last week the Welsh local authority announced that it had launched a blue bag commingled collection service to replace its previous system of source-separated kerbside collection. The change was made in an attempt to raise its 25% recycling rate.

Mal Williams, Chief Executive of Cylch, protests that the change will do little to increase recycling program participation rates.

He said: “The decision to compact all the materials collected is unlikely to increase participation rates which are the key to meeting recycling targets.

“It is somewhat spurious to claim that you will collect more tonnages because you spend less time gathering the material - that time, money and energy is simply transferred to the MRF stage of the process.

“In reality, the move to commingled collections is a step back for recycling in the county,” he added.

Cylch also took the opportunity to critique the council’s switch and questions “the carbon impact of the change”. Williams referred to a recent report published by the Camden council that compared its current commingled recycling service’s performance in 2006-7 to the source-separated scheme it had operation the year previous.

The London borough produced research that showed that commingled collections did boost recycling rates and reduced health and safety risks; however, the necessity of sending collected materials to recycling facility in Greenwich for sorting contributed to the a 77% increase in the carbon footprint over that produced by the kerbside collection.

When relating those results of the study to the council’s decision, Mr. Williams asked: “They might have saved time at the kerbside, but at what price?”

For more information, visit: cylch.org.uk or carmarthenshire.gov.uk.