New destination for 20,000 tons of Wolverhampton waste
More than 20,000 tons of recyclable rubbish from households in Wolverhampton is now being sent to Leicester to be processed after the site in Southampton where it had been going closed down.
It means that lorries dropping off waste from the city's 98,000 homes will now only have to travel a 100-mile round trip rather than the 306-mile round journey to the south coast.
Wolverhampton City Council's private contractor Enterprise has had a contact with the recycling firm DS Smith to handle the city's recycling after the authority did away with unpopular green boxes and flimsy white bags at the start of 2012.
Enterprise delivered a total of 23,000 tons of rubbish a year to DS Smith's site in Southampton and the move prompted criticism amid concerns that the environmental benefits for recycling would be lost.
But today it has emerged though that the waste is now being sent on the much shorter journey to Leicester after the Southampton plant was shut down.
Wolverhampton City Council spokesman Tim Clark said: "DS Smith recently conducted a review of its operational facilities and has chosen to reduce a number of facilities.
"They have sourced an alternative location for our mixed dry recycling, it had been going to Southampton and is now going to Leicester."
He said the Leicester facility operates in the same way as the Southampton plant and there would be no change in the quality of the service nor any cost impact to the council.
"It is a positive in environmental terms as the lorries will be travelling less of a distance," added Mr Clark.
The council had defended sending rubbish to Southampton saying it represented the best deal financially for taxpayers.
Recycling rates have doubled since chiefs overhauled the recycling system in January last year although people can now only throw away 140 litres a week of non-recyclable rubbish compared with 240 litres a week before.
