Sheffield Council Under Fire for Failing to Recycle All Plastics

Sheffield Council Under Fire
for Failing to Recycle All Plastics

Sheffield council said it has the best recycling rates in South Yorkshire, but it has been criticised for the introduction of new brown recycling bins that will be replacing the current blue recycling boxes, because they won’t be accepting all plastic items.

Residents can currently recycle plastic, glass, and tin cans but they won’t be able to recycle items like yoghurt pots, carrier bags, margarine tubs, food trays and bottle tops.

The current Labour council has faced criticism over this from Lib Dem councillors who say that failing to recycle all plastic items is a huge missed opportunity. They have started an online petition calling for the expansion of the recycling scheme in Sheffield. One Lib Dem councillor stated that all plastic items can be recycled just a few miles away in Chesterfield and that Sheffield Council needs to do better. The online petition has already got over 1300 signatures in the space of a few days.

However Sheffield council has hit back, saying that it sends less than 1% of its household waste to landfill, and that they manager to recover materials and money from the other 99%.

It added that its dry recycling rate (glass, cans, plastics, paper, and cardboard) is the best in South Yorkshire at 26.9% compared with the worst rate, in Doncaster, which stands at 19.47%.

Sheffield Council recently made changes to its recycling collections to save money. Paper and card is now collected at a different time to glass, cans and plastic bottles, so they don’t use as many vehicles, and recycling only goes to one location. This alone saves over £750,000.

Veolia, who have Sheffield Council’s recycling contract have a new fleet of refuse vehicles which have electric bins lifts, so the collections are quieter, more efficient, and produce less emissions.

And if residents want to know what they should do with their blue boxes? One resident has an idea. He’s set up a Facebook page, asking people to chip in £10 to create a community recycling service, where people can car share and collect plastics in their blue boxes and take them to the recycling bins at a local Waitrose store. The resident said that car sharing will help cut down on pollution and make Sheffield a greener place. He added that he knows that the idea is a drop in the ocean but he believes that every little helps. He also believes that the more takers there are for the community plastic recycling service, it might make the council and Veolia realise that it could be profitable for them to start collecting all plastics as part of kerbside collections or at least install some more plastic recycling bins around the city.