Chelmsford Council has said it is “justifiably proud” of its waste and recycling collection services in the wake of a Sky documentary which showed ‘contamination’ in some of the council’s recycling bags overseas, with the suggestion some plastic materials were not suitable for recycling.
Last week, TV station Sky Atlantic ran a documentary looking into plastic waste and featured an interview with a plastics trader in Hong Kong. The trader, Tony Wong, said there was value in recycling but suggested one load imported from Britain was too expensive to sort and recycle. Some of the recyclables were still wrapped in Chelmsford Council-marked clear plastic recycling bags.
(l-r) On the Sky TV programme: Cllr Malcolm Sismey, Chelmsford’s cabinet member for waste and recycling; Mark Smith, Chelmsford recycling officer; and Nick Martin, Sky reporter (pictured in scene during programme)
In response to the documentary, a council statement said: “The kerbside separated collections carried out by Chelmsford City Council are very effective in producing high quality materials for recycling that are free from contamination and are attractive to merchants and re-processors in the recycling sector”.
Kerbside
Chelmsford further explained the process of waste management at the council, including giving out six separate bags for different recyclables. The authority also said that it had invested over £600,000 in a new material sorting facility in 2011. This facility was “specially designed to help sort plastics collected from the kerbside into different types of polymers, as well as separating steel from aluminium, in an effort to ensure the majority of these materials could go direct to recycling merchants and re-processors.”
With regards to the material found in Hong Kong, the council explained more about the companies it works with once the plastic is collected. The authority claimed that “due to the volume of material collected from kerbside and capacity of the local sorting facility”, it sometimes send plastic unsorted and relies on merchants’ own sorting facilities, “generally this is Essex Reclamation”, the statement noted.
According to Chelmsford, Essex Reclamation informed them that the company uses Eurokey Recycling as one of the merchants that it deals with.
“Chelmsford City Council has no direct relationship with Eurokey, and therefore does not supply any materials directly to them, but clearly material collected at kerbside may well have been onward transferred to Eurokey by Essex Reclamation.”
Regarding the material in Hong Kong, any issues would need to be taken up with Eurokey, said Chelmsford council.
Essex Reclamation
After being named by Chelmsford council in its statement, a spokesman for Essex Reclamation explained that the company is “one of a few” that collect bagged plastic waste from Chelmsford Council.
Chelmsford’s clear recycling bags with material in them were featured during the programme
The spokesman added: “Once the bottles are sorted into a mixed grade we sell them on to the reprocessor. We have various outlets that we supply in the UK and Europe. The reprocessor will separate the bottles into PET and HDPE. Once sorted the materials will be shredded into flakes and then extruded into pellets for use in the manufacturing sector.”
He continued: “On the occasion we are over stocked with the bagged plastic materials we will bale the materials in its delivered state and the bales will be collected by Eurokey Recycling for processing.”
Eurokey
Reacting to the programme and the statement by Chelmsford, Eurokey’s managing director John Dhillon issued a statement in which he emphasised that the shipment featured had not been rejected, nor had claims been received because of poor quality.
“Eurokey are fully compliant with EA regulations”
John Dhillon
Eurokey Recycling
Mr Dhillon explained that he had ordered a “full investigation” into the documentary, as the content was “unfounded” and the facts not “substantiated”.
When commenting on the documentary and other articles that have appeared online, Mr Dhillon said: “I feel that both articles mislead the viewer or reader to believe that material collected and exported from the UK is destined for landfill. Both articles highlighted mixed bottles that originated from Chelmsford Council which were loaded directly onto seven containers by Essex Reclamation. This particular shipment of mixed bottles has not been rejected nor have we received any claimed for inferior quality”.
Mr Dhillon added that he has since learnt that the shipment has been trans-shipped to a recycling plant in Malaysia and not destined for landfill. He concluded in saying that “Eurokey are fully compliant with EA regulations and have comprehensive paperwork to support any material that is exported.”
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Source: letsrecycle.com Plastic
