Recycled News

Apart from what I discussed over the phone with the Sandwell Council press office, they also provided me with an email containing several quotes which are very helpful:

Cllr Mahboob Hussain, Sandwell Council’s deputy leader and cabinet member for neighbourhoods and housing, said: “I can assure residents we will endeavour to provide a waste and recycling service should there be any industrial action.

“I am very surprised by the threat of industrial action because the unions have played a full part in the single status procedure over a long period of time.

“If the unions wish to ballot their members that is a matter entirely for them.

“We will not speculate on what may or may not happen.”

Sandwell Council’s deputy leader and cabinet member for improvement and equality Cllr Pauline Hinton said: “Single status is in no way whatsoever connected with the funding of our recycling scheme.”

Due to this I shall be investigating further by asking the Unions responsible for the bin-men and recycling operators, Unite, GMB and Unison.

Well I started to investigate my follow-up story for last weeks news story. I began with contacting Birmingham Friends of the Earth and was fortunate to get through as I was told it could be difficult by a friend of mine.

I asked them what they thought of Birmingham City Council’s policies and facilities. The response started off positively with them saying that it has improved quite a lot they still have a lot to do such as provide more doorstep recycling collections to flats within Birmingham.

Following on from that I asked whether they thought that Compared to other Councils, such as Sandwell and Solihull whether Birmingham was doing the best it could do, this was in reference do the other council’s providing pre-sorting as the recycled material is collected.  The response was that they do have targets and it makes sense that they do the best they can do, but by being part of the “Energy from Waste” is simply not enough, a lot of the materials they end up burning could be used for recycling, simply burning them is wrong and its a dirty practice.

I asked he felt that burning the materials should count towards the targets set for the council, I did this just incase after further research I found that the council includes the stats from burning the materials as part of the recycling targets. The response was as expect, it should not count, while it’s not technically land fill, it’s also not recycling.

Additionally I asked what they thought of the current situation with Sandwell and the problems with the possible bin-men strike. The response was that their should be investment in recycling but not to the extent that the bin-men end up worse off.

I believe the main point I drew from this interview over the phone was that, while on the face of it “Energy from Waste” seems like a good idea, for the most part a lot of the materials that are being burnt could be properly recycled into reuseable items.

Next I contacted Sandwell, to ask about the possible strike. I was put through to their press office, I was told not to quote what she said, but she corrected my idea that it was due to the budget that the bin men were losing money, instead it was down to the single status that councils throughout the UK came up with, so that all workers have the same wages and it has nothing to do with the budget of Sandwell. Additionally I heard that a lot of civil are also striking soon, I’ll do some further research into this.

After realising this, I questioned whether the bin men also carry out the collection of recycling. This she didn’t know, I asked whether she would find out for me and she said she would phone me back, but as of yet I’ve not received a call. If I don’t receive the call today I’ll phone them up again tomorrow and ask them again.

I believes there’s definitely a story behind this, as well as a couple of angles. One could be about the acceptance of Energy from Waste when it could be considered a way of properly recycling. The other being the effect on Sandwell and possibly the rest of the West Midlands if the whole of the civil service including the bin men go on strike.

After considering long and hard how to write the story, I’ve finally finished my first news story for Birmingham Recycled. I’m quite pleased with it but I’m not quite finished with it, next week I shall be doing a follow-on in the form of asking other organisations what they think Birmingham’s recycling facilities and policies.

I’m also doing an investigation using helpmeinvestigate.com if you’re interested in helping feel free to sign up.

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.

As my look into Birmingham’s recycling resources and its participation in the WRAP spring campaign comes to an end, my final piece of  investigatory work has been to look at other councils around Birmingham in the West Midlands.

The first council i chose to look at was Sandwell, mainly because Phil Brooks of Birmingham City Council mentioned them directly during my interview of him over the phone, and I must say it was worth following up on the name drop as what I found will put Birmingham’s recycling scheme to shame.

First, Sandwell does have a doorstep recycling scheme must the same as Birminghams’ except that it does everything Birminghams’ isn’t willing to put the money in to do. Its introducing wheelie bins that as I type this are being distributed, in these bins not only are they expanding what they can recycle which Birmingham feels the need not to do, but they are adding other more complicated products such as Tetra Paks which are only now being recycled in the most up to date recycling schemes.

Additional not only do the doorstep collection vans pick up your recycled materials, they also sort them, then and there, which is the primary reason for why they recycled so many other materials that Birmingham does not, shamefully Birmingham City Council stated that it was far to expensive to do this for its residents.

There’s more though, they basically do everything Birmingham does except they transport their recyclable materials further a field to Southampton, for processing. This is because the facilities there are a lot better and not only that Sandwell Council is also working to upgrade other sorting plants to contend with a wider range of materials. They have also recently took part in the “Love food, Hate Waste” scheme with Wrap something I never heard about in Birmingham.

I’m also waiting for phone calls from Dudley and Solihull Council representatives but from the information I have gathered simply from their website they also possess better recycling schemes than Birmingham does. Here is the links for Dudley’s recycle page and Solihull’s page.

So overall, the only conclusion I can gain from my investigations into Birmingham’s Recycling capabilities, is that they are “average” at best, while those surrounding us seem to of put a lot more time, effort and money into creating schemes that attempt to get the full benefit of recycling. After i speak to Dudley’s and Solihull’s recycling officers I will add another blog detailing what they say if it is any different from what I’ve already found out by contacting Sandwell and by looking on their website.

After concluding the last blog by querying whether the council was fully behind the spring recycling campaign being run by WRAP and whether the facilities Birmingham has for recycling was good enough to cater for the public, I decided to contact Phil Brooks again to clarify the council’s stance on its involvement with the campaign.

He was as willing and helpful to ask as he was last time, I first started with asking whether the sorting plant in Birmingham had any plans to update its sorting facilities, I was genuinely surprised by his answer at first as he stated “There is no sorting plant in Birmingham” Thankfully though he quickly added that it’s actually in Wolverhampton, before then describing how the materials taken from the public’s doorstep is taken to their, sorted and then transported elsewhere to be recycled. Looking now at the response I could have then asked why isn’t their actual recycling facilities established around Birmingham but instead i moved on.

I decided to go into more detail about the items that could be potentially picked up on the doorstep, namely those in the list I mentioned in my previous blog. Below is the following reasons as to why they are not currently collecting them:

• Clothes – Very difficult for machines to sort, as clothes tend to get entwined when bunched. Maybe they should rely less on machinery and employ people to hand sort them.
• Tin Foil – Due to it being of a different type of aluminium it can’t be collected with cans, so the foil would have to be collected by its self and there’s not enough of it to be collected for it to be worth while.
• Batteries – Under European legislation passed on the 1st February the producers/sellers of batteries must offer recycling facilities for batteries, which he said is why there are a number of battery recycling bins at shopping markets and other shops, personally I haven’t noticed them myself.
• CDs – According to him, he has yet to come across a CD recycling scheme, although he mentioned that charity shops will often take them. Other than that he did not know what to do with them.
• Egg Shells – He suggested adding them to your home composting, if you have a composting bin.
• Light bulbs – According to Phil, these should be put into your normal rubbish due to a very interesting reason which I shall address next.

Other items such as Engine Oil and larger items such as television etc, he suggested taking to Norris Way Recycling Centre in Sutton Coldfield. This is the first time I’ve heard of this facility and in fact after looking on the site linked, I found a further four facilities like this one throughout Birmingham. I asked Phil Brooks whether these facilities would be raised during the PR campaign, all he could say though, is that he would think so, but was not in a position to know just yet.

Returning to the recycling of light bulbs I mentioned above and how he suggested that you should simply add them to your normal rubbish. Apparently all the rubbish that is gathered in Birmingham is taken to an “Energy from Waste” plant in Tyseley ran by Veolia Environmental Services Birmingham Ltd, which in fact incinerates all the waste and in the process, drives turbines that produce an average of 25 megawatts, which he states is the equivalent of powering a town the size Sutton Coldfield.

Whats left over after the incineration is the metal from said light bulbs and other items, this is collected and then sent off to a recycling plant where the metal is purified and reused for new items.

When I asked whether there was anyway to improve the scheme he did say that other councils have wagons that patrol streets and actively sort items as they collect them, I asked whether Birmingham was considering doing this and he flatly said no, due to the fact we are in a recession right now and even if we weren’t the cost of running such a program would be very high.  So it seems the only real problem holding Birmingham City Council back from improving their recycling program is the issue of money.

This Monday the WRAP spring campaign starts and as you can see, Birmingham does have “adequate” recycling facilities to deal with the additional items the campaign aims to bring to the publics attention, the only question now is whether the campaign being ran by Birmingham City Council is good enough to raise awareness of all these facilities. It’s the least they can do since they are not willing to put anymore money into actively collecting recyclable materials.

So, after my last blog, I got to thinking should Birmingham City Council participate in the Spring Recycling campaign to raise awareness about other materials that can be recycled when Birmingham City Council can’t provide the facilities to do so?

Of course it raises the issue of recycling again, but how does the council forsee dealing with people who actually wish to recycle these additional materials which includes light bulbs, CDs and even sheet glass. Items that could easily take part in the doorstep recycling scheme are as follows:

• Batteries
• Clothes and Textiles
• Tin and Aluminium foil
• Hearing aids
• Mobile phones
• CDs
• Egg shells
• Light bulbs
• Printer cartridges
• Video tapes

Even spectacles can be recycled, but none of those listed above are available on the doorstep recycling scheme and I live in Kingstanding which is just down the road from one of the councils recycling plants.

I believe its time that Birmingham does have up to date, quality recycling processing plants.  Birmingham is the second city of England and making sure we are able to recycle as much as possible from what we use in everyday life, such as egg shells, will go a long way to helping the environment and cutting down on the dumping of waste.

So, what do you think? Should Birmingham City Council really take part in a campaign which they can’t actually provide the facilities for? If not should they run their own campaign to remind people to recycle and use the doorstep scheme? Right now it seems they have one foot in and one foot out, casually taking part by constructing a sculpture but not putting any further effort in.

Following on from the email I received from LARAC, I attempted to find an email address for the part of Birmingham City Council that would deal with this scheme, the only one I could find though was a simple “Contact us” email address. So instead I decided to phone them directly, using the number provided by LARAC on their website that would put me in contact with their waste minimization officer, Phil Brook.

At first there was confusion as I didn’t realise that the campaign was headed by WRAP which I thought was part of LARAC, instead it is a totally different organisation funded by the government and Phil helpfully provided information on the difference between the two bodies. I asked him a number of questions concerning the campaign and their door step recycling scheme which is was happy to answer.

My first question was whether they had any prior warning about this campaign to allow for preparation?

His response was fairly detailed. He stated that they receive a newsletter every month from WRAP and this month they did receive notification that there was a campaign about to start.

My second question was whether Birmingham City Council was doing anything to take part within the campaign?

He stated that the only thing they were currently doing for it was to have a sculpture made out of recycled material created. Which begs the question why are they not posting leaflets to point out what other materials can be recycled?

So my final question was, is Birmingham City Council planning to expand the doorstep recycling scheme and whether it will include the additional recyclable that the spring campaign is aiming to make aware?

He first started off by stating that they are unable to expand the scheme to allow for additional materials as the sorting plant where all the materials, such as glass, plastic and cardboard etc, is currently unable to cater for these additional materials as of yet and until then of course they can not expand to include them. Whether the sorting plant will be expanding to include these materials however he could not say.

I found this fairly interesting since to me it seems that in Birmingham at least the campaign will be acknowledged with the creation of the sculpture but for the most part will not go any further due to the lack of a suitable recycling plant.

He further added though that the current doorstep scheme will be expanding to include flats which they are current in the progress of doing.

I was pleased with the information Phil provided, he said that if i had any further questions he would be happy to answer them and suggested looking closely at the WRAP website as they tend to be the more proactive organisation compared to LARAC.

So I did and was happy to find a link to the actual campaign website which I must say was very well made including an interactive search of what items you can current recycle at your postcode. As well as that it also supplies details to local authorities on how to run their campaign including make leaflets, posters and further interactions with the public.

It seems then that the only thing holding Birmingham back from properly getting involved in this scheme and future expansions of wider recyclable materials is the lack of services to deal with them. I’m curious as to whether there are any actual plans for updating the recycling plant.

I just received a response by the press office of LARAC and I have to say I’m impressed by the speed, but the content of the response was not as impressive:

“Hi Liam,

Thanks for your email. The campaign is being rolled out regionally by individual local authorities, so you would need to contact Birmingham City Council directly to see what they have planned. The campaign is being launched on 1^st March.

Kind regards,

Sophie”

Not exactly helpful, as I already pretty much knew all this. I will contact Birmingham City Council though as well as possibly the organisations involved with LARAC which are WRAP, Government Office for the West Midlands as well as the Centre of Excellence for West Midlands except their website no longer exists.

Apart from those organisations the LARAC website does provide a list of people to contact here , so I shall definitely be contacting Phil Brook soon.

After recently following the story on Marks and Spencer’s Plan A campaign I discovered that the LARAC shall be heading a national campaign to encourage consumers to recycle a wider range of materials, this shall campaign shall also be held on a local level, which shall of course include Birmingham.

Through the local council’s scheme I already recycle plastics, cardboard and papers, but rarely recycle other materials mainly because I don’t know where to take them besides the local tip. Hopefully this campaign will inform the Birmingham community as to where else we can do away with materials that are able to recycled as well as actually telling us about those we may not of considered before.

I have contacted the LARAC and I’m awaiting a reply to see if I can gather any further information on this scheme as well as finding out who in Birmingham City Council will be handling this campaign. As well as this I’m also hoping to question the council on whether they will extend the current recycling scheme to include the materials that the LARAC is suggesting we start recycling.

Below is an extract from the press release on their website giving a summary as to what will be included in the campaign, however this is aimed at the local authorities themselves and not the general public:

“Recent research has shown that almost everyone is recycling at least one thing; but when given the information and ability to recycle more, they do. Therefore on March 1st Recycle Now will be launching the Spring recycling campaign aimed at encouraging consumers to recycle a wider range of materials. As well as a national PR push with supporting overarching national statistics and results from recent research, we will be providing a PR toolkit for all Local Authorities on our partner site. The toolkit is designed to help you communicate the campaign to your local media, as well as highlight information available for everyone online.”

I would be interested in finding out whether the local authorities, especially Birmingham City Council have been given any other information or forewarning about this campaign as to me it’s not giving the local councils enough time to actually prepare and without adequate preparation I doubt any campaign would be truly successful.