I said I would provide further insight on the practices of recycling by other Councils within the West Midlands and here is another interesting one.
I just got off the phone with Steve Hawkins of Solihull Metropolitan Borough Council and what he had to say was very relevant to what I found out from Sandwell. I asked him whether the Vans that collect the recycling in Solihull also sort and he said “Yes, definitely” I asked him why exactly and he explained that by separating the materials before hand its a lot better for the sorting plants as to not do so would possibly taint the materials going into the recycling process and I quote “It would be letting the public down if they didn’t do this”
So as you see not only does Solihull pre-sort during collecting but they actually consider it a dereliction of their duty to the residence of Solihull if they didn’t do it.
Further along during the interview I asked him whether Solihull was participating with WRAP in their new campaign, his response was that they were still participating in the previous “Love Food, Hate Waste” campaign, much the same as Sandwell is, apart from that though he stated that they work extremely closely with WRAP, even going as far to adopt their iconography to reinforce their recycling message. The benefits of this he states is that when the public sees the WRAP advertisements on TV they can associate that message with their council, which he believes gives Solihull “free advertisement”. So after Birmingham stated it could not afford to expand its recycling resources, they are actually missing out on something that’s actually free.
Mr Hawkins he add however that WRAP are very controlling when it comes to working with them but addresses that by believing they gain more benefits by working closely with WRAP than they would do by trying to do it alone.
Not only is Solihull’s scheme very up to date but it’s also taking it very seriously something that Birmingham’s could really need. I’m not saying that Birmingham City Council is failing us, but it does seem they ain’t doing the best that they could do. I’m not just waiting for Dudley’s response although when i phoned neither the senior officer or any of his juniors were available, so its possible I may not receive one today.
Recycled News 
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