No change to council’s recycling arrangements

The council has decided to make no change to the way our recycling is collected, following a review of whether it would be ‘technically, environmentally and economically practicable’ to move (back) to collecting recyclable materials in separate containers.

The review is the result of an EU directive on recycling, adopted into UK law. The directive says that recyclable materials should be collected separately from each other unless it is not ‘technically, environmentally and economically practicable’ (‘TEEP’, in the jargon) to do so. East Cambs District Council has carried out a review that shows that it’s not ‘TEEP’ to collect them separately, so it won’t be.

It’s clearly technically possible to collect recyclable materials in separate containers – East Cambs used to do so, and many other councils still do. However, it’s likely that making recycling harder work for households would increase the amount of recyclable waste just being put in with the general rubbish – remember how much our recycling rate improved here after the introduction of the wheelie bins – so it’s not environmentally practicable. And collecting all the different materials separately would cost more money – a lot more money – so it wouldn’t be economically practicable either.

So it’s no change. Carry on. As you were.

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