Council spending £2 million on waste that could be recycled

£2 million a year is being burnt in Swindon when it could be earning money for the people of the town.

That’s the amount Swindon Borough Council estimates council tax payers are paying on an annual basis to have waste that could be recycled taken away and incinerated instead of earning money for the council.

Swindon’s Masterchef star Sam Kaekon and the council’s cabinet member in charge of waste Councillor Chris Watts joined forces at the waste and recycling centre at Waterside Park to urge people to think harder about how they deal with their household rubbish.

Cllr Watts said: “In the last two weeks we’ve conducted an experiment – we picked 10 black wheelie bins randomly from across the borough and went through them, picking out all the recyclable stuff, and leaving in the waste that can’t be recycled. It was a bit of a smelly, unpleasant job, but it taught us a lot.”

The results are shocking.

If the rubbish in the bins had been sorted properly, it would have filled six boxes of cardboard, one of glass, four food waste caddies and six bags of tins and plastic.

Crucially, it would have cut the waste sent for incineration down to only three bins – a third of the original.

Cllr Watts said: “We pay £140 per tonne to have this waste taken away and incinerated in an energy from waste plant, so the less we send the better.”

He said the calculation of what could be saved was more complex than just how many fewer binloads are taken awayas the cost is by weight not volume, but added: “We did an analysis of it, and we think we’re paying about £2m a year to incinerate recyclables.

“The group the KLF were famous in the nineties for burning £1m in cash – and we are doing twice that every year.”

And even more money is being lost because the council gets paid for the recycling it sends away.

Cllr Watts said: “We get £15 a tonne for food waste, aluminium is about £1,000 per tonne, tin cans around £200 per tonne. So keeping it out of the wheelie bins not only saves us money, it can earn us money as well.”

Sam Kaekon, who reached the finals of Masterchef earlier this year, said he was particularly keen to get people to put their food waste out for collection in the caddies supplied.

He said: “It’s better for everyone in Swindon id more of that is recycled, because it saves so much money, but also, and I know it sounds silly, it’s better for the world as well to use it for something.”

Sam added: “I cook a lot and am often experimenting, so I keep the small caddy with a compostable bag in it nearby, and just put the stuff I’m not using, the end of vegetables, peelings straight in it.

“I might keep bones for stock, but they’ll go in the caddy when I’ve finished with them, and after a meal, I scrape the plates straight into it.

“I put the bag out into the big caddy every couple of days so it never gets really smelly, which I know some people are concerned about.”

The council is currently extending its food waste collection to the blocks of flats which have, to this point, not been included in the borough-wide scheme.

Cllr Watts said: “We’re doing it by stages because it’s quite a big job to make sure every block has what’s needed.

“By the end of March, next year all flats should be having their food waste collected.”