How Dartmouth Works – Recycling

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Paper Reception Truck

How Dartmouth Works – Recycling

Devon recycles more than any other county – and the South Hams is one of its top recycling districts – By the Dart talked to South Hams District and West Devon Borough Councils’ employee Andy Barron, Waste Minimisation and Recycling Officer.

“Recycling is something that most people are very positive about,” he says. “We put our efforts into making sure that everyone has as much information as possible so they can participate fully.”

The council run 25 `roadshows’ each year to inform the public about recycling and composting – you may have seen the ‘Love Food, Hate Waste’, ‘Home Composting’ and others touring the area at community events.

The campaign also tries to concentrate on younger members of the community, and gives many talks in schools and to youth groups and organizations  in the district.

And  South Hams has some impressive figures when it comes to recycling, so the roadshows definitely help.

It is one of the top councils in Devon and in the top 25 nationally. Its 42,500 homes produce 34,640 tonnes of waste each year and 55% of it is recycled.

This waste does not collect itself – so the Council has 20 trucks, and 52 staff to do the job.

The council has seen some dramatic increases in the amount of waste it recycles – in 1994/95 South Hams was only recycling just over 6% of the waste it collected – meaning 94% of all our waste went to landfill and huge amounts of carbon dioxide and methane were produced, which contribute to environmental pollution.

“We’ve seen a big rise in the amount we are recycling in the last 15 years or so,” said Andy, “and this has been possible because we’ve changed the way we look at waste. We used to think of it as something to be just got rid of because we didn’t need it anymore – now we look at it as a resource to be put to good use.”

Bad publicity a few years ago meant a headache for Andy – convincing some people that it was very easy to ‘contaminate’ waste which would then go to landfill – and also that councils were ‘lying’ about recycling, in that much of the waste was simply sent to landfill despite being collected as recycling.

“There were limited incidents where some councils and some private companies were not fulfilling that promise,” he said. “But even then it was a rare thing. Now we can assure everyone that all our recycling is ‘reprocessed’ as it should be. The waste is reused – mostly in the UK. We are audited by the Environment Agency regularly – we have to be able to account for every single bag we collect.”

There is a small amount of contamination from incorrect items such as food wrappers and trays. They are removed when they arrive at their destination, so that everything else is recycled.

So what DOES happen to our waste?

I’m glad you asked:

Food and garden waste from the brown bin is composted ‘at Heathfield, near Newton Abbot and used as a soil conditioner on farms – the council has also given out compost for free to South Hams residents in previous years.

All the other waste is taken to DS Smith’s recycling facility in Plymouth, where it is sorted and then sent on to various places around the UK. Paper, foil, steel, plastic bottles, newspapers, magazines and cardboard are baled up and sent out to be re-used by industry.

The steel goes to Wales to be used in the automotive industry, the aluminium goes to Cheshire where it is used to create new cans and the plastic bottles are sent to Peterborough to be reused as bottles or turned into ‘street furniture’ (or plastic benches and litter bins to you and me). The glass goes to Nottingham to be used again, the card is sent to Somerset for re-use and the newspapers and magazines are sent to Kent to be turned back into more newspapers.

 Andy finds this whole process very satisfying.

“It is worth adding that not only are we saving resources, but there is significant carbon savings from the net effect of this activity,” he said. “According to RecycleNow, UK recycling saves more than 18 million tonnes of carbon dioxide a year – equivalent to taking 5 million cars off the road.”

So if you ever wonder if it’s worth sorting your rubbish and putting it out to be collected, there are 18 million good reasons why you should.

First Published July 2012 By The Dart