Aberdeen City Council has said some bin collections may be collected at “slightly different times” as they continue to “further refine” their routes in the aftermath of a fire at a recycling facility in Altens earlier this month.
The fire, which took place at the £27million Suez recycling and recovery UK centre on July 8, saw crews battling the blaze for 118 hours.
Due to the impact of the fire, it was revealed that staff from the facility have been “redeployed” or put on paid leave following the incident.
‘Minimise the impact’ on households and businesses
The council said that due to the “tremendous efforts” of their of waste and recycling team, working in partnership with Suez, they we were able to “minimise the impact” on households and business premises across the city.
So far, the only collections that have been affected were on July 11, which caused their pick-ups to be moved to the next Saturday, with all other collections returning to normal on July 12.
The local authority’s refuse and recycling collection vehicles and crews, which were all based at the Altens site, have been moved to the council’s Kittybrewster depot, while waste and recyclables are being taken to different places.
‘Financial impact of the fire is still being accessed’
Regarding how much the fire has cost the council, a spokeswoman for Aberdeen City Council said: “The financial impact of the fire is still being assessed. Discussions are ongoing with insurance companies, and we cannot comment on this at this time.”
Last week Suez revealed that Aberdeen’s recycling would be taken to the nearest “appropriate” centre, nearly 300 miles away in Hartlepool in the north-east of England.
The reason for this “temporary” move is so mixed recycling from the Granite City can be taken to another sorting facility that is designed to accept the same mix of materials.
This may seem a long way to recycle, however the council said sorted materials that were previously produced at the facility were “mainly already transported south to the reprocessors who used the materials”.
Residents urged to ‘sort recycling in same way’
An Aberdeen City Council spokeswoman added: “We would like to provide assurances to our residents that although this does represent a change to our recycling arrangements, recycling is very important and continues to be of environmental benefit.
“Residents should continue to sort their recycling in the same way as they are used to as all types of waste accepted at Altens East will continue to be recycled as before.”
Suez UK has been approached for comment.
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