June Sampson: Are we being ripped off by a recycling 'con-trick'?

It really is superb and, though there may be other boroughs as good at it, I know of none that are better.

I was reminded of this when the UK’s second biggest-selling paper (the Daily Mail) gave its front page to “the great recycling con trick”, and alleged that “12m tonnes of your carefully sorted waste is being dumped in foreign landfill sites”.

This may well be so in some places. But what about the royal borough?

Are Kingstonians deluding themselves that by separating recyclable stuff from landfill waste they are respecting the environment?

The answer is no.

Kingston Council’s waste and recycling team knows almost to the last ounce where our annual 63,000 tonnes of household garbage ends up – and it is not being buried abroad.

It was not always so.

I recall the years when what we called the refuse depot – now Villiers Road household re-use and recycling centre – was just mountains of unsorted rubbish, open to the skies, on which we could chuck rubbish at random, or pick through the unsavoury mass in search of the perfectly good items that often landed there.

The site borders the Hogsmill River, and was originally home to Chapel Mill.

After 400 years grinding corn, it became an oil mill in the 18th century and a candle factory in the 19th.

It was abandoned in the 20th, its ruins remaining for the 60 years as a reminder of once major industries.

Meanwhile, domestic waste services consisted, as they had since time immemorial, of men coming around once a week to empty our bins.

These were large, lidded, metal things, with a handle on each side, that we bought from hardware stores and filled with household rubbish of all kinds.

Stale food, glass, paper – these, and much else besides, were thrown in together, before being tipped on a corporation truck and taken to Villiers Road to await landfill.

It took the UK a long time to realise the devastating effect of unrestrained landfill on the environment.

But when it did, Kingston was among the first boroughs to act.

It had already introduced a weekly green box recycling service (with a smaller range of materials allowed than now) when, in 1998, it transformed the historic, but malodorous, site in Villiers Road into a purpose-built transfer station and a household reuse and recycling centre.

The result is Kingston householders now get a large wheelie bin for non-recyclable throwaways, plus a white carrier for cardboard, a green box for paper, glass, tin, and plastics, and two lidded brown caddies for food waste.

We also get bio bags to line the caddies.

The contents of all but one of these are collected weekly. The exception is wheelie bins, which are emptied fortnightly.

After initial misgivings, it soon became second nature to put various types rubbish in their appointed places.

And, though some complain that wheelie bins should be emptied weekly, I have found that fortnightly is fine provided they are used only for non-recyclables.

Whenever I visit other parts of the UK, I find few offer such a comprehensive household waste service as ours.

In Cheshire, to cite just one example, I found food waste counted as landfill, bins for recyclables were only emptied on alternate weeks and there were no such things as bio bags, or containers for cardboard.

Kingston Council’s waste management may be second to none, but the same cannot be said of us householders.

The truth is, we do not give it as much attention as we should, which is why only 46.8 per cent of our waste is recycled.

Though that is good enough to give Kingston the third best recycling rate in London, and the 19th in England, it could be much better.

A council spokesman explained: “Every item of waste recycled by residents saves council taxpayers’ money and if all the waste that could be recycled by residents actually was, we would gain well over £1m.”

Putting paper and card in the bin rather than the bags is our greatest transgression.

The spokesman said Kingston recycled about two thirds of its estimated total of this kind of waste.

He said: "It is a good start, but at about 12 per cent lower than the national average of 7 per cent.

"Our collection lorries carry away 7,500 tonnes of paper and card to be recycled a year.

"However, we estimate there is nearly 4,000 tonnes a year going into landfill – and if we could recycle all of this too, we would save about £500,000 in landfill costs."

He said the council collected about 63,000 tonnes of household waste a year – nearly a tonne for every home.

Of this, close on 47 per cent is recycled and composted now, 38 per cent is used to generate electricity and heat, and just 15 per cent goes to landfill.

What happens to all this stuff after it reaches Villiers Road?

Dry recycling material is put on 20-tonne lorries, taken to a recycling centre in Kent and, after sorting, sold on to manufacturers.

Viridor Waste Management does the selling on Kingston’s behalf, the council receiving 85 per cent of the income gained (£340,000 in the past year).

Once sold, the materials are re-processed into various new products. Paper is pulped, de-inked, and turned into newsprint and cardboard.

Tins are shredded, melted and turned into new drink cans. Plastic bottles are washed, melted and transformed into plastic pipes, fleeces and new bottles.

Glass is crushed, mixed with raw materials, then melted and moulded into new bottles or jars.

It can also be crushed for use as sand in the construction industry.

Food waste is taken to an industrial composting site in Sutton and, during an eight-week process, turned into high-quality compost for use in parks and gardens across London.

Meanwhile, everything we put in our black wheelie bins goes from Villiers Road to a huge landfill site run by Viridor Waste Management in Sutton.

Here even food, paper and other biodegradables we should not have put in our wheelies finds some purpose, for, as it rots in the ground, it gives off methane.

Viridor captures as much of it as possible before it escapes into the air, and uses it to power processors on the site, and supply electricity to the National Grid.

l Following on from the Daily Mail’s “recycling con” report, Kingston Council was adamant each of its waste contractors reported destinations and what happened to all the materials collected.

They all hold relevant permits from the Environment Agency and operate in accordance with UK and European Law.

Furthermore, it gets accredited information about the facilities where the waste is processed, and what tonnage is despatched to each.

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