Birmingham’s local businesses feel ignored by the council on recycling issues

• Mar. 1 by Rachael Giaramita (3)

Local businesses are feeling neglected by Birmingham City Council as a result of not having enough support when it comes to recycling facilities.

While residential areas are slowly improving their recycling habits, businesses seem to be struggling to embrace the eco lifestyle and blame the coucil’s strict guidelines when it comes to waste for this.

Birmingham Recycled took to Erdington High Street to see what businesses have to say about this problem and if there was anything more that be done to help combat this issue.

Local Businesses Response

The resounding response from shops, offices, and takeaways/ restaurants was that the council would often issue businesses with warnings about obstructing the public highway with waste.

However when businesses asked for guidance on how to dispose of their waste the council issued more waste bins, with out any encouragement to recycle, nor mention of special collections that is in place in and around the city, which is similar to the residential recycling scheme, only on a larger scale.

One local business woman Megan Fox, of Burchell Edwards Letting Agents felt that there was a large gap between services offered for residential recycling and those offered for businesses saying;

“Most companies in the area often take recycling home, unaware that they are breaking the law by mixing home and business waste.”

Another company owner who did not want to be named also said that he often had to take some of his businesses recycling to the local bring banks, even though if caught he could face up to a £5000 fine, as he was at a loss to what else he could do.

Birmingham Councils Response

Birmingham City Council was unable to give a comment when approached about what kind of service they offered businesses in and around the Erdington area.

The Birmingham City Council website also seems to have a lack of information regarding business recycling schemes, only warning businesses that mixing residential waste with commercial waste will result in fines however there is no alternative offered.

So What Other Options Are  There?

This is a gap in the council’s services that hasn’t gone unnoticed by other parties, like Lorna Langdon, the Managing Director of Birmingham based company Paperchasers.

The company is set up to help businesses organise and manage waste emissions, offering ethical office recycling services locally.

During 2009, they helped 100 offices divert over 250 tones of waste and over 1,000 printer cartridges from landfill which would have produced 378,396 kg carbon dioxide emissions but instead produced 60,462 kg.

Despite approaching Birmingham City Council to set up a partnership, Paperchasers has never received a response, and have only gained 2 recommendations from the council in the 3 years they have been in operation.

The compay finds this suprising as DEFRA (government department for Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs) published a report in 2009 for the “Commercial and Industrial Waste Aims and Actions” (for SME’s, small and medium enterprises).

The report states that they aim to help the businesses to work with the waste management industry because “SME’s are reactive and are unlikely to operationalise resource reduction strategies without appropriate stimuli (e.g. hand holding, grants, and regulations)”.

Check back with Birmingham Recycled for further investgation about why this a partnership with Paperchase is not something that Birmingham City Council are interested in adopting.

To read the interview with Lorna Langdon of Paperchasers click here