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St. Edmundsbury

• Local authority: St. Edmundsbury Borough Council
• Area profile: Bury St Edmunds and Haverhill make up 58% of the population, the rest of the borough is rural.
• Area: 65,697 Hectares
• Population: 95,260 (42,000 households)
• Waste management contract: St Edmundsbury Borough Council Direct Services Organisation (DSO)
• Recycling subcontractor: St Edmundsbury Borough Council DSO
• Recycling Rate: (1999/2000): 23.42 % (excludes materials collected from civic amenity sites)

St Edmundsbury's successes

Over the last ten years recycling has risen from 2 per cent to 23.42 per cent. In the three years from 1997 to 2000 recycling rates have stabilised at between 23 and 24 per cent. The borough has achieved these high rates through a combination of house to house collections of green waste and paper and bring site recycling. During 1999/2000 the borough recycled and composted 10,940 tonnes, and landfilled 35,809 tonnes. Since 1994 more than 77,000 tonnes of green waste has been diverted from landfill to composting. In October 1999, the National Recycling Awards recognised the borough's achievements, and St Edmundsbury was deemed the Best Recycling Target Success.

Councillor Wayman, Chairman of St Edmundsbury Transport and Works Committee, said: "It was great to receive this award, which was judged by other professionals. We were encouraged by our operational partners, the Suffolk Waste Disposal Company and Forest Heath District Council, to submit the scheme for consideration. This award is an acknowledgement by the recycling industry itself that St Edmundsbury Borough Council provides the most effective and sustainable recycling service in the country. This is a team award for the whole of the borough's Recycling and Waste Management Section."

Setting up the system

A survey called a waste compostition analysis was carried out before the schemes were implemented to work out which would be the most effective materials to collect from the waste stream to achieve high diversion rates from landfill disposal. This was done in 1993 by Warren Springs Laboratory, and the results are shown right.

With the aim of reducing the amount of waste generated and disposed of to landfill, the borough council used the information gained from this analysis and from a number of trial schemes to find the most effective waste management option.

Collection methods

The Council implemented a number of recycling initiatives, involving a mix of multi-material bring sites (centralised facilities where the public can take their waste for recycling) and kerbside collection schemes (door to door collections from residents houses).

• A network of 52 recycling centres and individual banks have been installed. These are facilities where the public can take their unwanted materials for recycling. During 1999/2000 a total of 1,486 tonnes were collected for recycling from these. This consisted of paper, glass, steel cans, aluminium cans, plastics, and textiles.
• A kerbside collection of newspapers and magazines was introduced in July 1996, which now covers 24,000 house-holds (54% of households). There is a partnership between the Council and private firm Holmen Paper Ltd to provide this collection service.
• Two collection vehicles are used, one operating out of Bury St Edmunds and one out of Haverhill. Collections are made every fortnight on the same day as normal refuse collections. Householders are asked to put their newspapers, magazines and junk mail in a bag or bundle next to their wheeled bins for collection. The paper is put onto the collection vehicles and transported to Chattam in Kent, for baling prior to being transported to reprocessors. During 1999/2000, approximately 1,500 tonnes of paper was recycled. Between July 1996 and July 1999, 6,000 tonnes of paper had been collected.
• A lot of focus has been placed on the diversion of green waste from the household waste stream. This is because the results of the composition analysis revealed that one quarter of the waste is made up of suitable material, and also because the council took the view that there was more scope for finding markets for the end product in the rural surroundings of Suffolk.
• The Council investigated village shredders, home com�posting and kerbside collection and concluded that kerb-side collection was the most effective system. A two-bin system was introduced in partnership with Suffolk Waste Disposal Company Ltd and County Mulch Ltd. This sys�tem consists of the ongoing weekly collection of the refuse wheeled bins alongside a fortnightly collection of green waste (kitchen and garden waste and cardboard) in brown wheeled bins. The collections are done on the same day for both black and brown bins. 32,000 house-holds (76 per cent of the Borough) have so far been sup-plied with brown wheeled bins. Dedicated vehicles are used for green waste collection, which is taken to a central 'windrows' composting facility (this is where the material is aerobically decomposed in long piles).

Markets for the composted materials

The material collected is shredded, composted, screened and blended to make 'Greentop' products. These are marketed as soil improver, surface mulch and lawn dressing and sold for landscape gardening use, horticultural use and direct to the general public via Household Waste Sites. 3,500 cubic metres of the material was used at Sizewell power station to improve the soil during a landscaping scheme.

Materials collected and destinations

St Edmundsbury Borough Council operates the bring site and kerbside collection schemes. The following table shows the amount and destination of each material collected.

Suffolk County Council are responsible for operating the collection of materials from Household Waste Sites. The table below shows how much of each type of material is collected from these and where it is going.

Education and promotion initiatives

• The Waste Management Section provides a 24-hour help line number (with an answerphone outside of office hours), which offers proactive information and advice about compostable waste. Acalendar is also supplied to all households with collection dates and recycling information.
• Education initiatives in school are linked to the national curriculum.
• Use of the Waste Watch's Cycler programme - over 5,000 children have seen the interactive show at 33 schools in the borough.
• Promoting waste awareness at public events - Nowton Park Country Fair, Haverhill Show, Suffolk Show and the South Suffolk Show.
• The Council also supports public information and awareness campaigns. These have included:
• The 'Slim Your Bin' regional campaign to promote recy�cling, home composting and 'shop smart'. The Borough hosted one of the thirty roadshows, and the brown bin scheme was featured in the Anglia TVdocumentary on the campaign.
• Two annual compost days were held in partnership with County Mulch Ltd and neighbouring Forest Heath District Council. The aim was to encourage householders to take responsibility for the waste that they generate and to encourage use of the 'Greentop' compost. In St. Edmundsbury, 317 tonnes of the soil improver was sold and given away. In addition 2,472 home compost bins and 1,726 water butts were sold.

Participation and public satisfaction

The composting and recycling schemes are very popular. A customer satisfaction survey in 1998 showed that of the 2500 households surveyed -

• 93 per cent take part in the brown bin collection scheme, and 95 per cent are satisfied or very satisfied.
• 85 per cent take part in the paper collection service and, again, 95 per cent are satisfied or very satisfied.
• 24 per cent are composting their organic waste at home.

The future

Work is being carried out to develop a partnership between Forest Heath District Council (a neighbouring local authority) and Suffolk Waste Disposal Company. The partnership will introduce kerbside collections of other recyclable materials (i.e. paper, cans, glass, plastic, textiles) to boost recycling rates still further. No extra separate collections would be necessary and the scheme would potentially collect 5,000 tonnes of extra recyclables, resulting in an equivalent reduction in landfill.

The borough is planning to extend the brown bin scheme to a further 9,000 households. It is estimated that this will remove a further 2,863 tonnes of waste from landfill.

Once these schemes are put into place, there will be a likely diversion of about 16,000 tonnes of material from landfill into recycling and composting. Depending how overall waste arisings change, this would equate to a borough-wide recycling rate of 35% (based on a waste stream of 45,000 tonnes).

Contact:

St. Edmundsbury Borough Council
PO Box 122
St Edmundsbury House
Western Way
Bury St. Edmunds
Suffolk
IP33 3YS

Tel: 01284 757337
Fax: 01284 757462
Email: mark.christie@stedsbc.gov.uk
Website: www.stedmundsbruy.gov.uk

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