Councillor Rosy Moore (Labour) said the recycling contract with Re-Gen, which sees Cambridge recycling waste taken to Northern Ireland, had been “really successful” so far.
A cabinet member at Cambridge City Council has said it was a “mistake” to mention the possibility of a mainland facility opening when the contract to take the city’s recycling to Northern Ireland was announced. Councillor Rosy Moore (Labour), cabinet member for climate action and environment, said bringing up the potential new facility had “clouded” the situation.
Earlier this year Re-Gen was awarded a contract to take the recycling collected by the city council and South Cambridgeshire District Council through the shared waste service. Under the contract the waste is taken to a materials recycling facility (MRF) in Newry, in Northern Ireland for sorting.
The materials are then sold to other facilities in the UK and Europe for recycling. A press release issued by the city council in February said Re-Gen had told the councils that “within the first half of this year it will take over a MRF on the UK mainland”, which the release said would “negate the need to transport the recycling to Northern Ireland”.
In July Cllr Moore told a city council meeting that the reference to a facility opening in the first half of this year actually meant the first half of the contract year, which started in March.
A more recent report has said that while the councils understand it remains Re-Gen’s “mid to long term strategic goal” to open a mainland MRF, the suggested timelines had now changed and that there is “no further indication of revised timelines”.
At a city council scrutiny meeting on Tuesday (December 2) Councillor Jean Glasberg (Green Party) said there had been “a lot of concern” about the decision to transport waste from Cambridge to Northern Ireland.
She claimed there had been a number of “different narratives about the contract itself and the proposed Re-Gen move to a MRF on the mainland”. Cllr Glasberg argued that “conflicting information“ and a “lack of transparency” had led to “confusion” and left people with a “sense they have been misled”.
Cllr Moore said she “absolutely disputed” that she had misled anyone. She said the city council only became aware of Re-Gen’s potential plans to open a mainland facility after the authority had agreed and confirmed that it would be entering a contract with the company, based on recycling going to the existing facility in Newry.
She said: “There is no reason I would be dishonest about that. You could argue it would look better to say this contract was agreed thinking they would be moving to the mainland, but that is not true. We agreed to sign a contract as a shared service, based on the facility in Newry.
“I think the mistake that we made, and I agree lessons have been learnt, is that we should not have mentioned that we thought they might be having a site on the mainland, because that has clouded it, but it has not for us, because that was not a vital part of it.”
Cllr Moore said the contract with Re-Gen had so far been “really successful” and highlighted that 96 per cent of waste taken to the facility from the area is being recycled, which she said was an increase of around 16 per cent.
‘We need to keep asking Re-Gen about mainland facility plans’
Councillor Tim Bick (Liberal Democrat) said he agreed there were things to be welcomed, including the amount of waste being recycled. However, he said transporting the waste to Northern Ireland for sorting is “adding miles” to the process.
Cllr Bick added that while the authority had no ”contractual leverage” around Re-Gen’s potential plans to relocate, he said council officers “need to be in their ear all the time” asking the company for updates.
He said what had happened was “regrettable” and said it is a “learning exercise”. He asked Cllr Moore if she would have supported the contract in the first place “knowing what she knows now”.
Cllr Bick added that he was now “much more keen” that the city council “gets it straight next time” rather than them keep going over what has happened.
Cllr Moore said it is ”absolutely true” that miles are being added, but said the facility in Newry is “completely different” to where waste was taken previously in Waterbeach, adding that it is “modern and energy efficient”. She said the quality of the recycled material Re-Gen are able to sell on is also “vastly improved”.
Cllr Moore highlighted that the contract was awarded after a public procurement process, which councillors are not a part of. She said she was “concerned” when she first heard that the recycling would be going to Newry, but said she does support the contract as she said she felt the benefits outweighed the negatives.
Councillor Beth Gardiner-Smith (Labour) highlighted that the report shared with the meeting said the Environment Agency in Northern Ireland had not raised any issues with the Newry facility. However, she said all councillors had been sent an email that “detailed enforcement action by the Northern Ireland Environment Agency against Re-Gen”.
Cllr Gardiner-Smith asked if this applied to the separate Warrenpoint site, which did not take Cambridge waste, or whether it related to the Newry MRF.
Officers said they had clarified this with Re-Gen and said the points raised in the email were unrelated to where Cambridge waste is being dealt with. They added that they had also been told that the Environment Agency’s queries to Re-Gen had also now been resolved.
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