Campaign raises questions about Birmingham’s recycling scheme

• Feb. 27 by Liam Richardson (4)

Birmingham City Council has provided a number of details about their particpation in a new campaign which has lead to several questions being raised as to whether Birmingham’s recycling policy and facilities are sufficient enough.

WRAP‘s new campaign raises questions about Birmingham City Council’s recycling scheme compared to others in the West Midlands

WRAP is starting a PR scheme on the 1st of March to make the public aware of other materials that can be recycled.

This scheme is going nationwide, yet is being organised on a local scale by WRAP and local councils.

Apart from a recycled sculpture that is being made for the advertising campaign, nothing else is of yet being  released or even planned.

Phil Brook, who is the waste minimisation officer for Birmingham City Council, stated there was a number of reasons. Foremost was that the current sorting facility they use in Wolverhampton does not have the capabilities for sorting a lot of the additional materials that are part of the campaign.

Birmingham’s door step recycling scheme has no current plans to upgrade the plant so that it can accept the wider range of recyclable items.

Mr Brook did however provide additional information on where certain items could be taken by hand  such as Norris Way Recycling Centre in Sutton Coldfield.

It’s been made clear that Birmingham’s waste is part of the “Energy from Waste” scheme that incinerates public waste and uses it to drive power turbines that on average produce 25 megawatts which is enough to run a town the size of Sutton Coldfield.

What about other Councils?

When comparing Sandwell’s and Solihull’s recycling policies and facilities, there are noted differences, the main being the sorting of materials during collection instead of simply taking them direct to the sorting plant.

Apart from the normal doorstep collection, Sandwell also collects additional materials and is currently handing out wheelie bins where it will also accept Tetra Paks, which even in the most advanced recycling schemes are sometimes not accepted.

Birmingham City Council refuses to invest in the sorting of materials before they are taken to the sorting plant, the reason being that in this current economic climate they can not afford it and if they could it would cost to much.

This raises the question, why can Sandwell and Solihull afford to do this while Birmingham, which has a considerably larger budget, can not?

Sandwell Council is also in talks to upgrade more local facilities to contend with the additional materials, at this present time they send all the materials they receive to Southampton, which again raises questions about Birmingham’s efforts in regards to recycling.

Solihul’s scheme is just as advanced and sophisticated. Steve Hawkins, senior recycling officer stated:

“Its better and more efficient to do so, otherwise some of the items that may be left in can potentially taint the recyclable material when its sent off to processing.

Not only is the council oblidged to do the best they can do, but to not pre-sort would be letting the residents of Solihull down.”

Both Sandwell and Solihull councils work closely with WRAP and are still taking part in their “Love food, Hate waste” campaign.

Solihull has adopted WRAPs iconography so that when its residence see the TV advertisements done by them, they are able to relate them to their council’s work on recycling and take it on board.

Mr Hawkins believes by doing this it gives them free advertising, something which Birmingham could use as it’s not willing to invest in recycling.

Are Birmingham City Council’s policies and facilities sufficent enough considering how much effort surrounding councils take?