Viridor criticised over recycling centre operations

Viridor, the company responsible for operating the Chichester Street Recycling Centre in Rochdale, has been criticised for the way it ran operations over Christmas.

Many residents complained that despite Rochdale Borough Council changing bin collections to once every three week to increase recycling rates, when they arrived at the tip to dispose of their Christmas refuge, despite it being separated into the right recycling groups, they were told to put “everything in the non-recyclable” area.

Patrick Killeen, Operations Manager for Viridor, said: “The festive period is inevitably one of our busiest times of year for the recycling centres, at the Chichester street site alone we saw almost 15,000 visitors over a 10 day period. To accommodate this we plan for increased transport over the period and work closely with our end destination outlets to ensure both recyclate and waste can be received and processed.

“However the unprecedented weather, particularly the flooding issues, seen across the region over the period had a knock on effect at our end destination outlets resulting in our vehicles being significantly delayed returning to site, ultimately this restricted the types and quantities of materials able to be removed from site and once containers were full we prioritised the non-recyclable waste, over a three day period to ensure the site could remain open, in addition spare containers were used for recyclate such as cardboard.

“We are disappointed that over this three day period some of the recycling services were not provided, however these were exceptional and unprecedented circumstances affecting both our end destination outlets, including one of our facilities that was flooded and resulting in additional volumes of waste received from householders affected by the flooding which could not have been predicted.

“Operational decisions were made to ensure the site could remain open and accessible to the members of public at a time most needed by them. The non-recyclable waste received over this period was sent to produce green electricity at our energy recovery facility.”