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Kerbside Recycling Collections

We worked with councils who were among the early adopters of kerbside recycling collections services in the UK around two decades ago. The councils recycled different types of materials with varying degrees of recycling performance across their areas.

Each council made the important decision that it was time to bring their service up-to-date and improve all aspects of their kerbside recycling collections.

That’s where H W Martin Waste Ltd came in. With its excellent track record of recycling service provision to local authorities across the country, the company is the perfect delivery partner. H W Martin Waste Ltd was duly contracted.

Requirement

To transform the collection arrangements into a clearer and simpler to use system, increase participation by residents and increase rates of recycling.

H W Martin’s Activity

The company quickly rolled out an innovative service to residents, which included sweeping away the confusing array of bins, bags and boxes and replacing them with one wheeled bin, and in some councils with the addition of a box that inserts inside the top of the bin to form one self-contained unit. This is easier for residents to use, easier for them to set out at the kerbside and means there is only one bin they need to store by the house.

The services introduced a full list of materials that residents can recycle: paper; newspapers and magazines; telephone directories; catalogues; junk mail and pamphlets; envelopes; cardboard; metal cans, tins and aerosol cans; plastic containers and plastic lids; plastic tubs, food trays and yogurt pots; plastic bottles; glass jars; glass bottles; clothes and shoes.

Everything goes into the bin and in some cases with glass bottles and jars, or newspapers, going into a removable box inside the top of the bin.

Pivotal in its service to the councils are the company’s Materials Recycling Facilities (MRFs) in the East Midlands and West Yorkshire.  It is the work of the sorting and separating technology and highly trained staff at our MRFs that makes the simple process for the residents at the kerbside a possibility. The approach is: “you just give us your recyclable materials, we will do the sorting”. And it is an approach that works.

Outcomes

There was an increase in recycling of up to 110% across the services.

H W Martin Waste Ltd has made the kerbside recycling service almost immeasurably better for residents. Coupled with the councils’ awareness campaigns, the system rolled out by the company has increased participation, widened the range of recyclable materials collected and improved the quality of the materials presented. A knock-on effect of this is a reduction in the amount of waste being thrown away and ending up in landfill.