By Jamie Waller, Local Democracy Reporter
A major reorganisation of Nottinghamshire’s recycling centres to deal with cramped sites and traffic impact is being considered.
The changes would save £1.7m per year, a report going before Nottinghamshire County Council next week says.
The review began in 2022 after concerns that some of the county’s 12 centres weren’t “fit for purpose”.
It found many of the locations suffered from poor layout and small sites, with no way to properly expand them.
Councillors on the Place Committee will be asked to endorse the changes next week (March 27), after which further investigation could begin into them.
The report calls for sites which don’t create traffic problems on the surrounding roads, and wouldn’t need to be closed whenever waste containers are moved.
The possible scenarios would require larger new “supersites”. No locations have been chosen yet, although there are a range of council-owned sites available.
The report calls for small-scale changes to be ruled out in favour of a major shake-up.
It notes residents say they would be happy with well-designed facilities which don’t require queuing at the entrance, even if they have to travel further to reach them.
A reconfiguration would have “minimal operational impact”, and would still leave 97 per cent of residents within a 20 minute drive of a site.
Poor layouts are affecting recycling rates, with Kirkby-in-Ashfield only recycling 63 per cent of its waste, compared to 86 per cent at Calverton, due to lack of space to sort it.
The county’s recycling centres are also seeing thousands of tonnes of waste brought there against the rules, the report reveals, costing an extra £400,000.
This includes both businesses disposing of their commercial waste, or people bringing recycling from outside of the county.
The household waste recycling centres in Newark and Worksop have been highlighted as two which have an unusually high volume – both receiving more than 10,000 tonnes per year.
The report suggests exploring automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) in order to combat this.
The report adds any centres which are no longer recycling for household waste recycling should be looked at for trade waste disposal.
Recycling centres in Mansfield, Kirkby-in-Ashfield, Retford and West Bridgford are highlighted as being close to capacity, with little room to expand.
