Allegations of serious wrongdoing have been levelled at Cardiff City Council by the South Wales Echo. The paper reported that workers at the city’s MRF claimed material intended for recycling was being buried in an adjacent landfill as cuts to the MRF’s operating hours meant it could not always handle the backlogs of waste that arise after holidays, for instance. One worker described an incident when up to 2,000 tonnes of green bag waste were buried over a weekend and another noted an instance following a post-Christmas build-up when up to 80 tonnes were buried. Workers also alleged that lorry loads of green bag recyclable waste were regularly shipped to England.

Cardiff City Council has admitted that, in one exceptional case, 1,000 tonnes of material originally intended for recycling were buried due to contamination issues and insists it was properly documented at the time. The council denies that recyclable material is routinely sent to landfill; Andrew Kerr, Chief Operating Officer, said: “The council strongly refutes any allegations of green bags being disposed of in landfill. The only material that has been sent for disposal has been contaminated or rejected by the process and amounts to six per cent, which is below national average. All inputs and outputs at waste recycling facilities are stringently and independently monitored throughout the year by regulatory bodies such as the Environment Agency, HMRC and the Welsh Government.

“Following the successful change to a weekly recycling and food waste collection, the amount of recycling bags has increased by 20 per cent. The current capacity of the MRF is unable to fully process this increased flow and therefore some is sent to other facilities in the UK at no extra cost to the taxpayer. The efficiency of the MRF is constantly under review, sometimes this means changes are necessary to working patterns and the staff and trade unions are always fully consulted in this process…

“[R]esidents and business should continue to support their schemes and have confidence that we do everything possible to recycle waste for the benefit of the city and its people.”

Reacting to the allegations, Cylch, Wales’s community recycling network, said: “It is not just that, as Wales’s Capital City, Cardiff should be leading the way as Wales strives to become a Zero Waste nation; one of the most striking observations is that, at current prices, the 1,000 tonnes of recyclable material could have been sold for in excess of £100,000. Instead it was landfilled, which represents buried money.” Cylch went on to applaud the council’s decision to institute bi-weekly collections of residual waste, a move that has pushed the recycling rates to above 50 per cent.