Part of the East London Waste Authority, Havering will be the first borough to use orange bags for its recyclables, replacing the clear bag service for 88,000 households – over 90% coverage of the borough.
The orange bags will continue to be collected at the same time and in the same vehicles as the borough's residual waste bags in the name of householder convenience. The new colour will allow a new system to automatically separate them from black residual waste bags from 2006.
 New delivery: (left to right) Nick Wellington, Mark Aspden and Phil Knight from Shanks East London with Cllr Andrew Mann, Havering's lead member for streetcare |
The bags are called “orange survival bags” because they are strong enough to be compressed without breaking in the collection lorry along with refuse sacks.
Until 2006, the bags are filtered and bulked up at Cleanaway's Rainham materials recycling facility, but when Shanks East London's ELWA MRF comes online in 2006, the orange colour will allow an “optical recognition” system to separate the bags using lasers.
At the moment Havering is recycling about 11% of its waste, but is to reach a 25% target by 2005/06. Above this, Shanks East London has targets to reach a 33% household waste recycling rate for the whole ELWA area by 2016.
Commenting on the new bags, Havering's member for street care, Cllr Andrew Mann, said: “Havering is becoming one of the most successful London boroughs as far as kerbside recycling is concerned and I believe with the new orange bags and increasing publicity we will be able to increase our recycling rates even more.”
Informed
In the light of potential problems with the public thinking their recyclables might be going to landfill because they are collected in the same vehicles as general refuse bags, Shanks East London said it was important to keep residents informed about the kerbside scheme.
The company has produced leaflets for householders “exploding the myths about recycling”.
Shanks East London managing director Allan Barton said: “Working with Havering, our team has done a great job of rolling out the orange survival bags on time and informing people about the change.”
Shanks won the 25-year contract to manage and upgrade waste disposal and recycling facilities in the East London Waste Authority area in 2002.
The company told letsrecycle.com that it would expand the orange sacks into the boroughs of Barking & Dagenham and Newham over the summer, but Redbridge would continue to use its current system, since it would be using its existing small MRF to sort materials.
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