Projects
Strategic Recycling Scheme (SRS)
The Strategic Recycling Scheme is funded by European money
from European Regional Development Fund (ERDF P6M4), European
Social Fund (ESF P4M3) and Welsh Assembly Government (WAG).
The £30 million SRS (now closed) was launched in Spring
2004 to provide funding for partnership projects to deliver
strategic resource management projects across Wales. The SRS
has five principal partners, the Welsh Assembly Government,
Cylch, Wales Council for Voluntary Action, Environment Agency
Wales and the Welsh Local Government Association.
The SRS aims to continue the process of funding communities
to achieve sustainable resource management, through the active
participation of all community members and a partnership approach
between the local authority, community and private sectors.
The SRS is now closed and the funds allocated. Project
activity will cease by the end of March 2008
followed by a three-month administrative closure period
giving adequate time to properly evaluate the whole scheme. Further
details about the successful projects click
here.
PROJECT PARTNERSHIPS (LEAD BODIES)
Below is a brief description of the 10 SRS partnerships projects
current status and what the money is being spent on:
Anglesey,
Lead partner: Menter Môn
Other partners: Isle of Anglesey County
Council, Verdant PLC, Cwmni Gwastraff Môn Arfon
This partnership incorporates 8 main activities, including
Alternate Week Collection (with green waste clollection), Home
Composting promotion programme, Community Composting grant
scheme, Gwalchmai Recycling Site Development (household recycling
centre), Community Grant scheme, Kerbside Collection, Waste
Minimisation programme including Real Nappies and Community
Catalyst where a Recycling Bus provides a
mobile base for the partnership to promote recycling and composting
techniques and raise awareness at various local events. For
more detailed information on all of the schemes see www.angleseyrecyclingbus.co.uk
Blaenau Gwent
Lead partner: Tidy Trev, www.tidytrev.com
Other partners: Blaenau Gwent County borough
Council
The partnership was formed to provide residents of Blaenau
Gwent with a weekly kerbside collection of dry recyclables
in order to improve on the existing fortnightly service. The
partnership also works on waste awareness and environmental
education within the Borough. Tidy Trev are also looking into
opportunities for trade recycling.
‘TidyTrev’ kerbside collections begain October
2006. In the relatively short period of time since trading
commenced, Tidy Trev has successfully rolled out its service
to in excess of 30,000 households across Blaenau Gwent.
In Oct 07 Tidy Trev won the business category award in Blaenau Gwent County Borough
Council’s environmental awards and was short listed with Blaenau Gwent
County Borough Council for the Cylch local authority partnership award.
Carmarthenshire
Lead partner: Carmarthenshire County Council
Other partners: Carmarthen Environmental
Resources Trust
This project consists of upgrading an in vessel compost facility
a commercial scale at the Nantycaws landfill site. It will
allow the composting to be expanded to accept food waste & larger
volumes of garden waste, while 3 county civic amenity sites
are also being upgraded to collect extra garden material. The
University of Cardiff are also involved in the project
which should result in valuable research data collection for
commercial composting techniques.
Gwynedd
Lead partner: Gwynedd, Gwynedd Council
Other parters: Antur Waunfawr, Cwmni Gwastraff
Môn Arfon
The project is known as “Caergylchu”. It
is a waste minimisation, refuse and recycling scheme covering
nearly 50% of the population of Gwynedd, primarily in the Arfon
area.
The building of the new Material Recovery Facility (MRF) and
high diversion Household Recycling Centre, outside Caernarfon
is now complete. The operations that take place are handled
jointly by the different members of the partnership. There
is a plastic bottle sorting lines, cardboard bailing, a can
line, and a paper line. Additionally the building houses
a public education centre featuring waste issues. This
scheme also provided a community grant scheme which has funded
activities such as a ‘Master Composting Scheme’ known
as ‘Cymorth Compost Aid’, www.cymorthcompost.org,
community green waste and timber recycling project, furniture
re-use scheme & waste
minimistion programme.
Merthyr Tydfil
Lead partner: Merthyr Tydfil County
Borough Council
Other partner: Green Horizons Merthyr
Ltd.
The SRS grant has enabled Merthyr Tydfil County Borough Council
to operate a weekly combined kitchen and garden waste kerbside
collection to 10,000 (40%) properties in Merthyr Tydfil
and also enabled the council to carry out a door stepping public
awareness campaign.
Green Horizons Merthyr Ltd is a community business recycling
household and white goods and operates a Community Repaint
Scheme. Launched in March 2006 they had a very successful first
year of trading reusing 72 tonnes of materials. They
are looking to reach sustainability within the period of their
SRS grant.
Newport,
Lead Partner: Newport Wastesavers
Other partners: Newport City Council and
Community Repaint
www.wastesavers.co.uk
The main project elements were a Kerbside Recycling collection
service (expanding the range of materials); comprehensive trade
recycling collection; bulky waste collection, reuse and renovation;
HHW infrastructure; a reusable nappy service; home composting
and organics and CA site provision through NCC. These services
were linked to a large-scale education and awareness programme
targeting individual households.
The Cleanstream Resource Centre
is built to BRE Environmental Assessment Method (BREEAM) standards,
and is an example of environmental excellence in Wales, the
UK and the European Union. It houses the following:
- bulking and baling facilities for pre-sorted materials
collected from domestic and commercial premises in Newport
and South East Wales
- an awareness facility that will be used to demonstrate
the need for and benefits of waste reduction, reuse and recycling
- a number of reuse workshops that will refurbish furniture,
electrical appliances and IT equipment
- office space for employees of Newport Wastesavers, volunteers
and other partner organisations
Pembrokeshire
Lead partner: Pembrokeshire County Council
Other partners: Planed, Milford Haven Plus,
Fishguard Composting Group, Frame, West Wales Eco Centre,
Machinery Ring
www.recyclepembs.co.uk/content.asp
The activities for this partnership include county wide awareness
raising, home & community composting (with a composting
hotline, website and a compost nurses/doctors scheme), capacity
building, bulky furniture collection with supported employment
opportunities, horticultural employment project, mobile green
waste shredding service, Adopt-a-bring-site Scheme and a Real
Nappy scheme.
Powys,
Lead Partner: Powys Zero Waste, www.powyszerowaste.co.uk/
Powys Zero Waste has now provided SRS funding to the following
projects through Powys High Diversion Learn (PHDL) and Powys
High Diversion (PHD) both co-funded by ESF and ERDF respectively.
Both PHD and PHDL are backed by SRS as match-funding.
PHDL
Phoenix Furniture – Intermediate
Labour Market model using SRS cash to provide training opportunities
to young people through the use of recycled wood.
Cae Post Ltd – Training element for
a very successful kerbside recycling collection system
Ystrad Tools for Self Reliance – Learning
opportunities for the difficult to employ in the Ystrad area
using old hand tools as the training medium which when refurbished
go to Tanzania.
Curlew Project (Prestiegne) Wood-a-gain:
Taking disadvantaged kids and young adults and providing
them with training opportunities to benefit the wider community
through scrap pallet wood.
Ystrad Wood Store: Training for the project
mentioned below.
Llanwrtyd Wells Community Transport - Event
Recycling: Using the plethora of shows, fetes and
events throughout Mid-Wales as a training base for event
recycling and the vehicle for developing a recycling culture
in the wider community.
Eco Dyfi - Waste Watchers:
Targeting areas of low participation in the Machynlleth area
using recycling champions.
10 Green Bottles – Using green glass
as a training medium for people with learning disabilities
to development quality products for a future tourist and
presentation market
PHD
Phoenix Furniture – New (and highly
successful) premises in Llandrindod Wells along with a series
of unique solutions to rural furniture recycling including
defunct lorry containers placed in strategic locations. This
project is exceeding all expectations regarding tonnages
and would put some larger firms to shame.
Cae Post Ltd Kerbside: First of its kind
in the UK! Kerbside recyclate is weighed at a householder
level and the results available on a householder only basis
to allow them to monitor their recycling and thus encourage
participation. The project currently covers 5000 households
in North Powys and has already nearly doubled the original
amount of recyclate anticipated.
Cwm Harry Land Trust – Newtown Food
Waste Project: Another Wales first! A food only
collection scheme for the Newtown area were the householder
collects food in a kitchen caddy lined with a corn starch
bag and then transfers it to a pavement receptacle for collection
by CHLT. This is currently being processed by the Anaerobic
Digestion plant in Ludlow but will shortly (pending appropriate
permissions) be mixed with green waste in a factory unit
in Newtown to be processed into a very high quality garden
compost.
Ystrad Wood Store – Wood collected
from commercial organizations re-used back in the community
along the lines of the Brighton and Hove Wood Project.
Llanstephan Area Sustainability Scheme – Our
smallest scheme! A small rural parish hall with a few recycling
receptacles. What happens when you create new signage and
distribute a local newsletter advertising its presence? That’s
what we hope to find out. Does the black bag waste reduce?
Does the incidence of fly-tipping increase? Watch this space!
Ystrad Feasibility Study – to identify
new business opportunities for this community recycling organisation.
Rhondda Cynon Taff
Lead Partner: RhonddaCynonTaffCounty Borough
Council
Other partner: Toogoodtowaste, www.toogoodtowaste.co.uk/
Rhondda Cynon Taff County borough Council have used their
SRS grant to expand it’s kerbside collection to previously
non-participating areas of the county borough, increasing activity
by 42%. Kitchen waste collection service is received
by some householders. Collection methods for furniture
and white good have been improved to facilitate reuse
and recovery.
Toogoodtowaste is Rhondda Cynon Taff’s furniture
recycling and community regeneration charity and is committed
to increasing
reuse and recycling; relieving the effects
of financial hardship, and creating training
and work experience opportunities. The SRS grant has enabled
Toogootowaste to set up a central distribution centre serving
the whole county. This will enable them to divert more
waste from landfill than current operations. A new telephone
system and IT infrastructure, linking warehouse stock to the
finance system has enabled them to streamline existing operations.
Swansea
Lead partner: Swansea Environmental Centre, www.environmentcentre.org.uk/
Other partners: Black Environment Network,
MOre Green Project, Swansea Council, Sustainable Wales, Swansea
Community Farm, Enfys
The range of activities implemented by the partnership is
wide. It includes community composting, home composting
promotion, furniture recycling, bicycle reuse, bulky waste & WEEE
and raising environmental awareness and a Real Nappy Campaign.
Torfaen
Lead partner: Torfaen County Borough Council
http://www.torfaen.gov.uk
Other partners: Torfaen Community Recycling
Limited and Circulate
This partnership operates a weekly kerbside collection of dry
recyclables, fortnightly system for garden waste and kitchen
food scraps one week following by residual waste collection
the other week.
The furniture recycling organisation Circulate (Garnsychan
Partnership) is operating very successfully and expanding its
services working with ex-prisoners.
Page last updated: 18th Nov 2007
