All nine household waste recycling centres in Cambridgeshire have begun to accept upholstered household seating again, following a brief halt in collections, the County Council has confirmed.
The council has apologised to residents affected by last week’s sudden temporary restriction on accepting upholstered seating while it worked at pace with its partners on a safe disposal method.
An interim solution for accepting waste items such as sofas, upholstered chairs, cushions, and beanbags at all the recycling centres, will also allow bulky waste collections offered by all of the county’s City and District Councils to resume. Please check their websites for further details.
The halt came about after new rules came into force to dispose of harmful persistent organic pollutants (POPs), organic chemical substances with toxic properties, meaning sofas, cushions and chairs must be incinerated.
As a county council that traditionally doesn’t use incineration for its waste, we didn’t have an easy or immediate solution to hand
“We don’t underestimate the concerns last week’s sudden announcement will have caused many of our residents, and we would like to apologise to them for that, and thank them for their patience and understanding,” said Steve Cox, Cambridgeshire’s Executive Director of Place and Sustainability.
“Changes to the way we are allowed to safely dispose of these items meant we were given an extremely short timeframe to deal with waste that could no longer be put into landfill, which had to be stored separately from any other waste before being incinerated.
“As a county council that traditionally doesn’t use incineration for its waste, we didn’t have an easy or immediate solution to hand.”
“We are extremely grateful to our partners across the whole system including our contractor Thalia who has worked with us at pace over the past week, from the date it was confirmed to us by the Environment Agency that we would be in breach of legislation from January 1, “ said Cllr Lorna Dupre, Chair of the Council’s Environment and Green Investment Committee.
“This has meant we now have safe and compliant temporary solutions to allow us to continue to accept this waste until we are able to dispose of it safely by incineration.”
Residents are also reminded that there are alternatives to taking upholstered household seating to recycling centres such as donating it to a charity.
