Recycling Policy - Find a freedom of information request

1.A few days ago I took some recyclable plastics ( with the Mobius loop) to the local recycling centre at West Marsh Road and being unable to find the usual plastic recycling bin I asked one of the workers there where I should place  the afore mentioned  items. He told me to place them in the landfill bin.

Is this a change in council policy? For if it is I fail to see the point in sorting and washing recyclable plastics to put in to the green bags for roadside collection if they are going to end up in landfill.

Specified plastics collected at the kerbside by your district council as part of the mixed dry recyclable waste stream are sent for separation and recycling by a contractor on behalf of Lincolnshire County Council. They are not sent to the Energy from Waste plant for energy recovery.

Plastics collected at Household Waste Recycling Centres (HWRCs) were previously sent for recycling. However the market for recycling the mixed polymers that are collected at HWRCs has declined to the point where we struggle to find a supplier who has the capability to efficiently separate these for recycling. This has been widely reported in the media as recycling outlets in the Far East have ceased to take recycling material from Europe and America. A recent procurement exercise proved that the available market would routinely send such mixed plastics to energy recovery.

While this remains to be the case, Lincolnshire County Council have no real option but to send the HWRC mixed plastics for energy recovery and do so through using our own facility at a significantly cheaper rate than those being offered by the private sector. Since 2014 Lincolnshire County Council have sent minimal amounts of waste to landfill but have processed the bulk of the county's non-recyclable waste through our Energy from Waste plant in North Hykeham, Lincoln.

Where the plastics that you are diligently cleaning and separating for recycling are acceptable within the kerbside collected mix (details available on your local districts council's website) I would urge you to use that service in order to ensure that they are sent for recycling.

Lincolnshire County Council is sorry that this response isn’t more positive but is an unfortunate reflection of the situation that we find ourselves in. Lincolnshire County Council continue to promote recycling and where possible will source and use contractors who can offer cost effective and sustainable solutions to the county's waste arising