Recycling changes 'won't hit' zero-waste village (From South Wales Argus)

Recycling changes 'won't hit' zero-waste village

10:20am Saturday 25th July 2009 in News By David Deans

RECYCLING CHAMPIONS: The Summers family of St Arvans

WALES' first zero waste village will be able to continue their project despite changes in recycling in the county, a council has said.

But the current recycling services operator in Monmouthshire say fewer items will be recycled at kerbside in St. Arvans under planned changes to recycling in the county.

St. Arvans became the first zero waste Welsh village in 2007.

As well as 18 types of waste being collected at the road side, with 95 per cent of residents took part in the project, achieving a 77 per cent recycling rate.

Only a few items, such as plastic bags and nappies, are put into residual waste for landfill.

But Monmouthshire Council plans to switch from separating out waste at the kerbside to allowing residents to put all recycled materials in purple bags.

The move means the council bring recycling in house from contractor Monmouthshire Community Recycling - which also collects recycling in St. Arvans.

The company said Tetra Paks, batteries and aluminium foil would not be collected at the kerbside.

However Monmouthshire said items will be able to be recycled at the council’s "bring sites" - with the nearest in Mitchel Troy and Caerwent.

A spokeswoman of MCR said: “Although the village’s project steering group voted to continue the project, it is hard to see how this can be done if the co-mingled system is introduced, limiting both the waste streams they can recycle, and their involvement in the process.”

The family of Lou Summers, 42, are among the most enthusiastic of the zero waste scheme.

“I feel it’s incredibly important, it’s taken a lot of effort to get everyone on board. It will be a shame that it will change,” she said.

Monmouthshire’s head of waste management Dave Harris said the council would work to make sure villagers are able to continue with their progress.