The Independent MRF Group (IMG), a group of Material Recovery Facilities from across the UK, supports Simpler Recycling as the way to increase England’s recycling performance in a future where local government finances will be under severe pressure.
Working with materials reprocessors, many of whom are happy to accept paper, card, glass, plastics and metals from commingled MRF outputs alongside the same materials from twin stream and source separated collections.
The group believe in letting the technology do the heavy lifting, leaving council’s to be good at what they do – engaging with residents to improve the quantity and quality of recycling captured from households.
The IMG was established to represent the views of the larger (75,000 tonnes plus per annum) independently operated MRFs, who are responsible for processing nearly 25% of the material from commingled household collections services provided by their customer Councils in England and Northern Ireland annually.
The group includes Beauparc, Casepak, N+P, Re-Gen and Sherbourne Recycling Ltd.
These MRFs have invested in the latest sorting technology assisted by AI to improve the quality of their output materials to meet the specifications of the reprocessors they supply.
The members see the benefits in spreading investment costs over their significant input tonnage to provide the best value for money solutions for their council and business customers.
John Coates from Re-Gen, chair of the group, says: “As independent operators of significant infrastructure, who run mainly merchant facilities, we must be at the forefront of sorting technology best practice to be able to offer our customers the best solution at a price they can afford.
“Our members have invested in the latest sorting technology, AI and robotics to deliver on our customer expectations and maximise the volume of recycling that we can supply into the market.
With such significant volumes being processed through our facilities we are experts in logistics within the UK and exporting further afield, to find the best value for money to keep our customers happy.
“Commingled collections have consistently the greater proportion of top performing councils for recycling in England and Northern Ireland, where government subsidies have been low to non-existent.
“We have worked with our customer councils to offer them modern facilities that we invest in to be able to meet their specifications as they struggled with austerity in the past and future budget challenges.
“By using less complicated vehicles with fewer crew members our customers are less likely to experience disruption and experience the impact of staff shortages.
“We recognise that we are key to them providing a resilient and reliable service to their residents”.
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