Greens deplore the festering issue of shipping recycling waste to Northern Ireland

In a YouTube ‘song-letter’¹ to Cambridgeshire Councils, an Irish environmentalist group asks “What’s the use of learning, if you cannot comprehend, that throwing rubbish somewhere else does not achieve the end?” This is a question that is proving almost impossible to answer.

Since March this year, Cambridge’s recycling waste has been transported to Newry in Northern Ireland to be sorted at the ReGen materials recovery facility (MRF). When concerns were raised about the environmental and practical sense of this arrangement, Cambridge City Council assured everyone that the firm would be opening an MRF on the UK mainland within six months. It seems that they naively took this at face value and even issued a press release about it in February.

Green Councillor Jean Glasberg says “Cambridge residents carefully sorting their waste for recycling believe they are doing their best to minimise the impact on the environment. But transporting waste over 400 miles and across the Irish Sea is not a sustainable option and adds to carbon emissions.

Cllr Rosie Moore, City Council Cabinet Member for Climate Action and Environment, now says that the move to the mainland was only mooted after the contract was signed, but this is not how it was presented to councillors or members of the public. I feel we were seriously misled”.

Concerns about the company have been raised publicly by the Irish group Rostrevor Action Respecting the Environment (“RARE”). ReGen processes around 200,000 tonnes of waste every year, near the shores of Carlingford Lough, a marine protected area. It also stores waste to be sent off for processing in other countries.

RARE wrote to Cambridge City Council in June this year, asking whether Cambridgeshire waste is still being sent to Northern Ireland, and when this will stop. At the City Council Meeting on July 24th, Cllr Glasberg asked what the Council would be doing about this.

Cllr Glasberg says “I and other members of the Council voted for the use of the Irish-based recycling company on the understanding that they would very soon be acquiring a mainland facility. It now seems that this was not part of the procurement process, nor is it in the contract that the City council and South Cambridgeshire District Councils signed with ReGen. I have asked the City Council to follow up on this immediately and report back by the next council meeting on progress”.