Published: Thursday 12th May 2022 | 3.52pm
The new dual stream recycling service has begun to roll out over the district, its aim is to improve the quality of our recycling.
New blue bags to recycle paper and cardboard are making their way to residents in Cannock Chase and every property will have a blue bag by 20 May.
The new service will not only give residents additional recycling capacity, but will also result in better quality recycling by avoiding contamination.
The Council’s contract for the sorting of dry mixed recycling came to an end earlier this year. The new contract includes the requirement for paper and card to be collected separately, to all other dry recycling materials.
If the Council were to continue to recycle, as we were, we would have seen a fourfold cost increase for the processing of our dry recycling per tonne, to Cannock Chase taxpayers. Therefore, the Council took the decision to change to a dual stream collection service to save those costs.
The market for dry mixed recycling material has changed, keeping paper and cardboard separate from other materials improves quality, as well as significantly reducing processing costs. Companies that buy materials to be recycled, now demand a much higher quality, and the market for low quality co-mingled paper and card (such as ours) has all but disappeared. Improvements in quality mean that more of the materials collected can be recycled instead of being incinerated or landfilled.
It is understood that most co-mingled dry recycling collections across the country will change to this type of collection over the next few years.
Councillor Justin Johnson, Portfolio Leader for Environment and Climate Change said “The introduction of the blue bag, alongside our neighbouring authorities, is to ensure that our service reflects the national changes in the waste and recycling industry.
“The dual stream service will not only give residents additional capacity to recycle, it will also ensure that any paper and card recycled, isn’t contaminated, by keeping it separate from other dry recycling”.
“I know this is a big change for residents but it’s a change we need to make to future proof the service. There is an extensive Frequently Asked Questions page on our website for residents that want to know more”.
“We are extremely grateful to all of our residents who continue to recycle correctly and help to ensure that we don’t have any contaminated loads.”
There is a Frequently Asked Questions page on our website here: https://www.cannockchasedc.gov.uk/residents/recycling-waste/changes-recycling-service-may-2022-faqs
You can also find out what goes in which bin by using our search facility on our website: www.cannockchasedc.gov.uk/whichbin.