By Joe Locker, Local Democracy Reporter
Roughly £1m is spent by Nottingham City Council every year on financial penalties caused by contaminated recyclable waste.
The authority’s waste services visit 31,950 properties across the city every day to collect different types of waste.
Most household waste goes to the Eastcroft incinerator, where it is burned and turned into energy for thousands of homes and hundreds of businesses.
This means the city is already ahead of national targets to send less than 10 per cent of waste to landfill, with around eight percent sent to landfill at present.
However recycling rates are poor and, as of 2021, they had dropped as low as 23 per cent and “well below” the national average of 43.8 per cent.
A significant amount of this recyclable waste tends to be contaminated when it reaches the recycling centre, meaning it can’t be re-used. Common problems include food left on otherwise recyclable packaging.
If more than 15 per cent of the recyclable waste delivered by the council to the recycling plant is contaminated, a financial penalty is incurred, which is paid to the waste contractor.
During a Communities and Environment Scrutiny Committee on October 4, Mary Lester, the director of resident services, said the penalties incurred cost the council around £1m every year.
“Our recycling rates is one of the lowest in terms of core cities, with only a quarter of our waste presented as recycling,” she said.
“Our performance has dipped over the years in terms of where we were and where we are currently.
“The way our current contract works is we exhume a certain level of contamination with our recycling waste, but once it turns up to the recycling centre if it goes over the [threshold] there are financial consequences for that.
“On average we are paying about £1m because of contamination.”
To help combat this and the city’s low recycling rates a ‘Municipal Resources and Waste Strategy for 2023 to 2050′ has been drawn up.
One way the council is planning to improve the rates is through a new waste collection system.
Towards the end of last year, residents were asked whether they would prefer a twin stream method or a multi-stream system.
Twin stream means residents’ waste would be collected every two weeks, and they would get containers for paper and card and a bin for their remaining recycling including glass, plastic and cartons.
Under a multi-stream system waste would be collected every week and residents would get multiple containers for food waste, paper and card, as well as separate containers for each recycling material such as glass and plastic.
This method would require a new type of bin lorry.
More than 30 per cent of waste collected in Nottingham’s green bins is food waste and separate food waste containers would be provided in both cases.
A food waste trial is currently under way in the Berridge ward, with more than 3,000 homes being given a food waste container for a year to see how it well it works.
Cllr AJ Matsiko (Lab) said some of the responsibility should sit with the residents of Nottingham as well as the council.
He praised the work of the ‘Clean Champions’ who work voluntarily to help keep neighbourhoods litter-free.
“People are really proud of that,” he said.
“We should be doing it within community groups and giving people some responsibility for it because it is one thing constantly, constantly, constantly complaining, but actually we can work together.
“We cannot do everything, we have limited responsibilities.”
Councillors were also informed the council would be discussing the possibility of pop-up recycling centres, because there is limited land available in the city to create an entirely new facility.
The first of a series of waste strategy board meetings will also be held from next week, to get partners together to discuss the plans further.
