9:00am Wednesday 17th March 2010
By Alicia Kelly
A recycling plant which can take and sort a mixture of recyclables from Worcestershire and Herefordshire was officially opened yesterday.
Guests including councillors from the two counties were invited to tour the plant and watch as more than a mile of conveyor belts swung into action.
The plant, called EnviroSort, has been taking rubbish since November and will be fully operational by July.
Its presence means more people can now put a mixture of paper, cardboard, food tins, drink cans, cartons, plastic bottles, containers and glass bottles and jars into the same green wheelie bin for collection.
Recycling from Worcester and Herefordshire already goes to the site in Woodbury Lane, Norton, with recycling from Bromsgrove planned to go there in April and from the Wyre Forest in June.
Worcestershire County Council chairman Councillor John Cairns, who unveiled a plaque, said: “It’s essential. At the moment, Herefordshire and Worcestershire are producing about 350,000 tonnes of waste. If you didn’t have this it would go to landfill and we haven’t got enough holes to accommodate it all.”
Coun Cairns said the plant was currently seeing about 15-20 per cent rejected or unrecyclable waste but it was hoped that figure would be reduced.
He also said that recycled paper, glass and plastic from the 105,000 tonnes that can be processed by the plant each year would bring in money.
The plant – run by Severn Waste Services – covers 7,150 square metres and received planning permission in 2007.
Coun Anthony Blagg, the county council’s cabinet member for waste and sustainability, said: “The size is impressive and the technology is state-of-the-art.
“Worcester is already one of the best recyclers in the country. Places like Bromsgrove and other parts of the county are very high and set to get higher when we get them on to the EnviroSort plant.”
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