With news on: Machinex to provide equipment for Coventry MRF; Pow defends role of ‘incineration’; and, Material Focus launches household WEEE recycling campaign.
Machinex to provide equipment for Coventry MRF
Coventry city council has named Machinex as the preferred provider of process equipment for its proposed 175,000 tonnes-per-year capacity in-house materials recycling facility (MRF).
The facility received planning permission at a Coventry city council planning committee meeting on 14 January (see letsrecycle.com story). It is to be operated by Sherbourne Recycling Limited, the local authority company wholly owned by the eight Midlands-based councils involved.
Coventry’s recyclable waste is currently sent to Biffa’s Aldridge MRF
Machinex’s design utilises 14 sorting robots and 14 optical sorters.
Richard Dobbs, managing director and chair of the project board, said: “It is great that we have hit another significant milestone, keeping us on programme to achieve a fully operational facility by summer 2023.
“We are also pleased to announce today the appointment of Machinex as our preferred bidder for the process equipment. Next step is the appointment of the civils contractors, then work can really get underway.”
The MRF will have a throughput of 47.5 tonnes per hour of mixed dry recyclables.
Pow defends role of ‘incineration’
Recycling minister Rebecca Pow has defended the use of ‘incineration’ for waste that cannot be reused or recycled.
A debate on ‘waste incineration and recycling rates’ was held in parliament on 13 January, having been secured by Conservative MP Elliot Colburn, who is campaigning against construction of Viridor’s Beddington energy from waste (EfW) plant in south London.
Rebecca Pow is recycling minister
Mrs Pow said: “Despite our high ambitions, there will always be waste that cannot be recycled or reused, potentially because it is contaminated or because there is no end market.
“There are choices to make about how we manage that unavoidable residual waste, and in making them we need to consider the environmental impact.”
She added that, should wider policies not deliver the government’s waste ambitions in the long term, the introduction of a tax on incineration of waste would be considered.
In response to the debate, the executive director of the Environmental Services Association (ESA), Jacob Hayler, said: “The role of energy recovery in the UK’s waste management system has been well debated for many years and we believe that consideration is best now given to upstream interventions that seek to limit the volume and type of materials entering the residual waste stream in the first place – particularly those which could and should be recycled.
“If we can get these upstream interventions right, which includes getting consumers to play their essential role in this system too, the debate around energy from waste becomes moot.”
Material Focus launches household WEEE recycling campaign
Material Focus, the not-for-profit organisation funded by the compliance fee, has started a campaign to stop householders hoarding and throwing away their old small electricals.
Launched on 5 January to coincide with Twelfth Night, the Give Back January campaign is billed as an antidote to the “mass consumerism” surrounding Black Friday and Christmas. Focused on Instagram, the campaign also features some content on Facebook and Twitter.
Give Back January is fronted by Scottish journalist and television presenter Andrea McLean and her husband Nick Feeney
Give Back January is fronted by Scottish journalist and television presenter Andrea McLean and her husband Nick Feeney. Throughout January, adverts will run showing the couple boxing up old items for recycling or donation to charity once lockdown measures allow and encouraging the public to do the same.
Scott Butler, the executive director of Material Focus, said: “With so many people experiencing financial hardship or in need of more tech to respond to the events of 2020, we all need to consider donating or recycling our old electrical items – they are worth almost £160 million to those in need.
“If your old electricals are truly at the end of their life do not throw them away, as they will end up in landfill. Please instead recycle them as a minimum.”
Material Focus has launched a postcode tracker so people can find their nearest recycling or donation points.
The post News in brief (18/01/21) appeared first on letsrecycle.com.
Source: letsrecycle.com Waste Managment
