New EU directive will impact on Cheshire East waste collection costs

Cheshire East Council is being forced to carry out an assessment of it waste collection service to ensure it complies with new legislation.

From January 2015, under the revised Waste Framework Directive in respect to the Waste (England and Wales) regulations 2011, separate collections of recyclable glass, metal, paper and plastic from householders are required.

However, the regulations do allow authorities an element of discretion to co mingle those wastes where it is not technically, environmentally or economically practicable (TEEP) to have separate collections.

As the Council collects dry recyclables in one ‘silver bin’ they will need to demonstrate that it would be unnecessary and uneconomic to switch to separate collections and that the processed recycling streams being produced is of the same standard, as if it had been sorted at the kerbside.

The Council has commissioned waste consultants to produce a ‘TEEP Assessment’ which has concluded that “It should be clear that the current system has been chosen because it is seen as more technically practicable, environmental and economic than collecting the four materials separately.”

The TEEP assessment states that if the recyclable materials were collected separately, and there were still fortnightly collections, the increase in costs would be almost £650,000 per annum (ca. 28% increase or almost £4 per household).

The TEEP assessment will be considered at a meeting of the New Delivery Vehicles and Environment Overview and Scrutiny Committee on January 8th aims to demonstrate that that there is no necessity to collect the four materials separately and that it is not ‘technically, environmentally and economically practicable’ (TEEP) to do so. It is then scheduled to be received and approved by the Cabinet in March 2015.

If the TEEP assessment is not accepted then the collection of kerbside waste in a single silver bin will have to be changed to accommodate four different waste streams.