Recycling – stay green with the green box, says Hackney Friends of the Earth

Recycling using orange sacks: the council is proposing to sort things out later. Image: Hackney Council

Hackney Council is in negotiations about replacing the familiar green recycling box with orange sacks. The council’s aim is to increase recycling rates in Hackney and lower the costs of recycling services.

Whilst we agree it is positive that the council is exploring ways to move closer to its recycling target of 50% by 2020 (currently 25% of all waste is being recycled in Hackney), adopting the proposed system based on orange sacks would be a move in the wrong direction.

Whilst the orange sacks may be more suitable for residents living in high-rise estates or far from the kerbside, for all other properties on street level the new proposed system has a lot of downsides.

In contrast to the green box where recyclables are sorted manually on street level – and for that reason called ‘kerbside recycling’ – the mixed materials from orange sacks are taken to material recovery facilities and separated mechanically. This process is called commingling.

One of the key issues with commingling is that it leads to a higher grade of contamination of recyclables compared to the current kerbside recycling, the latter allowing a precise separation by hand. As it is much more difficult to make new products from contaminated recyclables, UK mills are much less willing to buy them.  Consequently, materials are more likely to be shipped and processed abroad.

A Friends of the Earth briefing from 2009 points to a further significant disadvantage: in the commingling system, 10-15% of the collected material is not being recycled, compared to less than 1% in kerbside recycling (see this Friends of the Earth recycling briefing).

In addition to this, a smaller range of materials is being accepted in the orange sack. For example, it does not take clothes and batteries, which increases the risk of these more valuable resources ending up in landfill.

It is not only about the materials themselves: the vehicles which transport the recyclables also impact on how environmentally considerate the process is.

A recent comparison of the two recycling systems, prepared by Sustainable Hackney, shows that the use of more compact vehicles during collection of commingled recycling led to an increase in fuel use by 46%.

In a study commissioned by Camden Council, the overall carbon footprint of commingling recycling rose by 77% compared to kerbside recycling. The switch could thus make a dramatic difference to Hackney’s carbon emissions.

Instead of being led by short-term financial savings, Hackney Council should maintain the current green box system for street-level properties and support its residents to recycle more, and more regularly. The provision of reliable collection services is vitally important to this aim, as are regular promotional campaigns.

Clarification 1.55 pm Friday 13 April 2012: this article was written by Hackney Friends of the Earth

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Hackney recycling – row grows over orange sacks