Recycling WAS taken to landfill, the council admits (From Richmond and Twickenham Times)

Recycling WAS taken to landfill, the council admits

4:53pm Friday 14th December 2007

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Three lorry loads of recycling materials have been taken to landfill by the council's contractors, the borough's environment chief admitted this week, just days after he described the claims as a myth.

Two weeks ago Councillor Martin Elengorn, Richmond Council cabinet member for environment, strongly denied materials put out for recycling were being tipped into the ground.

But this week he said Veolia, which collects rubbish and recycling for Richmond Council, took three loads of mixed recycling to a waste transfer station in Brentford rather than to Greenwich, where it would have been sorted and recycled.

Coun Elengorn said the contractors had acted against instructions and it would not happen again, as a section of the council depot in Twickenham had been set aside to leave materials if time was short in the future.

"We have severely admonished them," he said. "They should not have done it. I was upset, disappointed and frustrated, it should not have happened. I can understand why, they were under pressure, it is a symptom of the demand, which has been greater than expected, but they should have asked and we have taken a practical step to provide a holding facility should the need arise again."

Coun Elengorn said the problems with the service had settled down, with many of the places which had been repeatedly missed by crews now getting waste and recycling collections. The new arrangements were introduced at the beginning of last month and have seen plastic bottles and cardboard collected from doorsteps for the first time.

He said calls to the council's contact centre were dropping and although residents report problems in Heathfield, Whitton and Hampton Wick, Coun Elengorn said the crews were getting on top of it.

"We are down to a very small number of places that have issues," he said. "We still have some, the demand is higher than expected and people not putting anything out before are now."

Coun Elengorn said there were indications 20 per cent more people were now recycling and added extra resources were being put in over the festive season.

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