Vale Royal Borough Council, Cheshire

Vale Royal introduced a new alternate-weekly waste collection and recycling service to every single one of its households in April 2004. Residents were provided with a kerbside box for the collection of dry recyclables, plus a bag for papers and magazines. Residual waste is now collected on alternate weeks to the recycling and garden waste.

Throughout the planning, launch and ongoing operation of the scheme the Council has worked closely with Novelis Recycling, who provided advice and support on operational aspects of the programme and ran a training event for the recycling team. Initial feedback from Novelis identified a high level of contamination among the aluminium cans, including steel, foil, and broken glass. Novelis worked with the waste management team to offer guidance on improving quality. Consequently, Vale Royal has added an Eddy Current Separator to its processing line. This provides an extra, positive, sort for aluminium cans and produced an immediate reduction in contamination, with aluminium cans now meeting the Novelis specification.

Says Alison Hunter, Waste Policy Manager for Vale Royal Borough Council: "We are continuing to work closely with Novelis on issues such as quality and communications programmes. Their ongoing support has been invaluable." The results of these combined efforts are clearly paying off. Best Value Performance Indicators (BVPI's) for waste recycled, composted and collected, show the huge step-change in the volume of waste collected - far in excess of the council's target of 18%.

Novelis Recycling's Commercial Manager Keith Guest believes that Vale Royal is an example of how a local authority can benefit from working closely with reprocessors: "We welcomed the opportunity to share our expertise with the Vale Royal team. It gave Novelis a greater understanding of the issues facing local authorities as they work to achieve their recycling targets."