Rigid plastic recycling scheme expansion sees two new sites added

News / Sat 17th Aug 2024 at 09:52am

ESSEX County Council’s rigid plastic recycling scheme will now be available at Burnham-on-Crouch and Rayleigh Recycling Centres. They join the existing eight sites offering the service.

The scheme allows residents to dispose of a wide range of items that cannot be recycled from the kerbside. This includes: plastic buckets, crates, bins, storage boxes, garden furniture, pipes, toys and plastic plant pots.

Burnham-on-Crouch and Rayleigh join the existing sites offering the scheme below:

· Braintree

· Brentwood

· Clacton

· Chigwell

· Colchester

· Harlow

· Saffron Walden

· Witham

Another site will be announced soon.

Since it launched in May 2024 over 64 tonnes of plastics have been recycled. It is estimated that every 100 tonnes of recycled rigid plastic contributes to avoid 250 tonnes of CO2 emissions. This is the same as taking 180 cars off the road.

As part of the Waste Strategy for Essex, the Essex Waste Partnership is committing to stop using landfill by 2030. The rigid plastic recycling scheme is one of the steps taken to achieve this target.

The scheme means even more plastic items that are no longer needed or cannot be reused will be recycled.

Once the rigid plastics get collected from the recycling centres, they go to a local re-processor. The items go through a series of different processes. This includes pre-sorting, cleaning, grinding, and sorting based on their polymer types. Ultimately, they will be used to manufacture new plastic products, reducing the need for virgin plastic.

Councillor Peter Schwier, Cabinet Member for Environment, Waste Reduction and Recycling said:

“The expansion of the rigid plastic recycling scheme demonstrates our commitment to sustainability and to the reduction of the amount of waste sent to landfill every year.

“We are thrilled by the amount of material already collected and look forward to expanding this initiative to more sites across Essex.

“Our ambition is to recycle 1,000 tonnes of rigid plastic annually that would have otherwise ended up in landfill.”

To find out more about plastic recycling in Essex, visit: https://www.loveessex.org/ideas/plastic-recycling

ENDS

3 Comments for Rigid plastic recycling scheme expansion sees two new sites added:

Alan Salsbury

2024-08-18 09:55:24

This new recycling initiative is very welcome but there has to be a system enabling the public to take advantage of this. At the moment, the household waste recycling is very regimented. For instance, I cannot put a plastic bucket in with my recycling, even though it is probably made of the same material as the plastic containers of household products and it is not worth my while, neither would it benefit the planet, if I drove to the recycling centre just to hand it in. There has to be a way that such items could be collected at the same time as other recyclables.