New face of recycling

Published: 16 September, 2010

• I WRITE in response to residents’ letters about the new recycling service and apologise that there have been some early teething problems.  

The new service allows residents to recycle all paper, card, glass bottles and jars, food and drinks cartons, tins, cans and mixed household plastic packaging, food and garden waste. It’s great that residents have participated and that we have a huge rise in the amount of dry recycling as well as the new organic service.

However, the issues your readers have raised, particularly about mixing up of recyclable material on collection, is something we take very seriously. We know that collecting paper and card separately from the other recyclables improves the quality of the materials so they are more marketable and use less energy in the sorting process – and the Veolia recycling vehicles have two compartments so it is supposed to be kept separate. We are aware that this has not happened on occasions; we do know a vehicle was out of service and Veolia resorted to using a single-compartment vehicle; however this is not common practice and although the materials were still separated out later, it is very frustrating as we all take much more effort to deal with our waste appropriately.

Owing to the efforts we are all making, our food waste tonnage has risen by almost 400 per cent and is now diverted away from landfill – a fantastic achievement by Camden residents, so well done and thank you for your participation.

Thank you for letting us know when and where the service isn’t fully operational. If you have any other issues with the service please call 020 7974 6914. For more details see: www.camden.gov.uk/newface 
Cllr Sue Vincent
Cabinet Member for Environment