Hazel Court waste site queues

To understand the real reasons behind why queuing traffic is causing congestion problems at York’s central waste collection site you have to go back a few years.

Until 2012, York operated three civic amenity (recycling) sites that residents could use to dispose of unwanted items. One (at Beckfield Lane) was located on the west of the City, as second (Towthorpe) was located in the east with the third being Hazel Court.

In 2009 the Council announced a plan to create a salvage and reuse centre. It was likely to be located at the existing waste transhipment centre at Harewood Whin. It aimed to go a step further in encouraging the reuse of items that had not reached the end of their lives. Reuse/salvage has less environmental impact than either incineration (or even recycling)

Residents opposed the closure of the Beckfield Lane recycling centre

A new Labour administration – elected in 2011 – made two mistakes. It scrapped plans for the salvage centre and simultaneously announced the closure of the Beckfield Lane site.

The site was subsequently developed for housing.

In effect, 75% of the City now tries to funnel its waste through the Hazel Court site.

There are some alternatives. So called “bring” bins are located in car parks. They typically provide facilities for recycling paper, cans, glass, clothes, and shoes.

The web based “freecycle” group seeks to put item donors in touch with potential users. (The service closed down for much of lockdown but is now operating again). Private scrap dealers also tour and collect in some areas, but it is a largely uncoordinated service. In some areas “surplus food” is distributed by volunteers to those in need.

For many years, ward committees funded visits by skips to estates. These provided an option for those without personal transport to dispose of items. In some wards the vehicles toured the area on a particular day picking up discarded items. This service has also largely disappeared.

The Council should publish details of the amount of waste being deposited at Hazel Court by type.

That will provide them with valuable information on what needs to be done to ease further the demands on Hazel Court and surrounding roads.

Bid to recycle more plastics in Foxwood

Reuse and salvage – Questions about York approach

One of the most short sighted decisions of the York Council’s Labour administration between 2011 – 2015 was their decision to scrap plans for a “reuse and salvage” centre.

The facility could have been located at Harewood Whin and – as well as replacing the Beckfield Lane recycling facility which was closed in 2012 – would have provided 21st century salvage facilities for surplus items in the City.

Electrical equipment skip at Hazel Court.

More important, it would have introduced a more professional approach to the re-use of unwanted, but still serviceable, items.

That need is currently partly met by the internet based Freecycle and similar groups but large numbers of usable objects still find themselves in the land-fill stream.

Today, visitors to the Hazel Court amenity site witnesses a good example of the issue. One resident arrived with a set of perfectly serviceable wooden dining chairs. They would have found their way into the timber recycling skip had not another visitor offered them a new home. But that was down to luck not planning.

Recycling is more costly, and energy intensive, than simply reusing items…..even if some need repair or a coat of paint.

The Council still persists in asking residents to drop electrical goods into a steel container from a height of 3 metres jeopardising any opportunity to reuse the computers, printers, phones and other potentially valuable items which fill the skip each day.

The Council must take an independent look at the range of re-use services that are available in the city.

They then need to expand them and make sure that the options available are communicated regularly, and effectively, to local residents.

Whatever happened to York’s salvage and re-use centre?

Well we know that it was one of the first cuts that Labour made when they took office in 2011.

The project was to have replaced the Beckfield Lane recycling centre but would have offered much more.

Its priority would have been to encourage the re-use of unwanted items. Currently only informal on-line groups like Freecycle address this need.

Only when the re-use option was exhausted would materials have been salvaged. For example, there is a ready market for building materials such as timber, bricks and hard-core.

Not only was the Beckfield Lane site closed but the replacement – which would probably have been located at Harewood Whin – was also scrapped.

In part the decision contributed to the decline in recycling rates in the City and an inexorable rise in Landfill Tax costs.

The £2 million salvage centre would have paid for itself by now.

Sadly many residents resort to dumping items. One armchair has found its way onto a verge on Gale Lane today. Although some of these items are picked up by “rag and bone” men, many have to be removed by the Council.

Dumped mattresses are a particular problem for those lacking transport to get to the remaining 2 civic tips.

The York Council now charges £40 to remove up to 10 bulky waste items

Small wonder that so many residents are petitioning their objections to reduced waste collection frequencies and the prospect of a £35/£37 pa charge for emptying green garden waste bins.