Midlothian waste recycling plant rejected rubbish due to too much dog poo

Reports from Millerhill Recycling and Energy Recovery Facility show that there was a lot of waste that they weren’t contracted to take due to dog faeces.

Loads of rubbish from Midlothian were rejected by a waste recycling plant for having too much dog poo in them.

A report on waste services in the county over the last financial year revealed that Millerhill Energy from Waste plant refused to take some loads of litter and street cleaning materials.

Midlothian waste recycling plant rejected rubbish due to too much dog poo

Councillors were told that the rejected loads contained what was considered to be “higher levels of dog faeces than those permitted under the contract”.

Instead, the rubbish had to be included within loads of mixed municipal waste, which the report added “solved this issue but created an issue with the cleaning of compaction elements with the RCVs”.

Midlothian Council’s cabinet met virtually this week and heard that SEPA had confirmed the county’s recycling rate in 2018 was 58.2 percent – making it the third highest performing local authority area in Scotland.

Food waste recycling has been introduced at council offices at Fairfield House and Midlothian House, with the food waste going to Millerhill as well.

And it revealed that over the last year, garden waste collections had brought in an income of £512,000 for the local authority, with more than 14,000 households signing up for the paid-for service.

However, it warned that the impact of Covid-19 was likely to have an impact on the services.

It said: “Towards the end of Quarter 4, the most significant challenge facing all services was the outbreak of Covid-19. This will remain a challenge into 20/21 and for the foreseeable future.”

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