Good news for residents as the County council is planning to extend the trial of kerbside glass recycling.

County Councillors have praised the success of a pilot pick-up scheme for glass, involving 4,000 households in certain areas. These four trial areas covered approximately a thousand households each in Alnwick, Bedlington, Hexham and Morpeth.

A 22% increase in the amount of glass being recycled in the county during the Covid 19 pandemic have made it difficult to assess the results of the pilot but the Council expects glass recycling to stabilise, and so has decided to extend the pilot to 31st March 2023, and include another 800 households to the trial.

Councillor John Riddle, the portfolio holder for local services, has said the council would need government funding if they were to roll the scheme out to the whole county. He said: “The trial has been a great success. We have got to extend this. It would be ludicrous to stop this at the moment, but we will need the government to support us’.

Local county councillor for Alnwick and Lesbury, Gordon Castle has said, “Glass recycling has long been problematic owing to the difficulties of broken glass contamination and kerbside collection costs in our widely dispersed rural settlements requiring glass collection rounds separate from other waste collection. However, as recycling technology improves and public expectations rise, we have conducted successful kerbside collection trials that will soon be expanded. Before we go final we need to evaluate data, cost effectiveness and how our ambitious waste management strategy can deal with glass recycling most efficiently.”

For information on the trial, please visit: https://www.northumberland.gov.uk/glass.aspx