EXCLUSIVE: MP Tessa Munt, who was a volunteer with the Environmental Investigation Agency, has told us: “Reform councils can’t be bothered. They are incompetent.”
MP Tessa Munt is fighting to get councils recycling aluminium cans properly(Image: Dave Nelson)
A Reform-run council has been branded “incompetent” after losing out on a recycling contract.
The Mirror has uncovered the scandalous management of recycling of aluminium cans collected by councils across the UK. One shocking example, Nottinghamshire, has highlighted Reform’s waste management.
The Labour-led Nottingham City Council made £300,000 last year from recycling cans last year. The Reform-led Nottinghamshire County Council, with three times the population, made nothing. The City council used a UK-based recycling company with a deal to make money the County didn’t.
MP Tessa Munt told the Mirror: “It’s become clear that while some councils are raising considerable sums from their residents’ cans it looks like Reform councils can’t be bothered. They are incompetent.”
She added: “Council leaders need to make sure their officials are not signing contracts with waste companies that allows their cans to be sent abroad and they get no income from it.”
“It’s barmy that we allow private waste companies to sell this precious metal abroad then British businesses spend £5billion each year buying it back for use in our defence and manufacturing industries.”
Ms Munt gave some examples of councils run by other parties who are getting money back for their residents. She said: “Counties like Lib Dem controlled Cambridgeshire and West Sussex make over £1 million each year.
“Even smaller populated areas like Labour’s Doncaster and Tory controlled Swindon and are making hundreds of thousands back.”
Bassetlaw MP Jo White, whose constituency is actually in Nottinghamshire, said: “This revelation is shocking. Reform have been promising to renegotiate this waste contract for over 18 months and they have done nothing.”
Many councils just allow private companies to take the cans and sell for profit abroad. Others choose to use British companies to recycle the cans and then take the money to put into council coffers.
The details were was confirmed in the House of Commons recently in a debate initiated by Munt. She sent Freedom of Information requests to every council in the UK asking if their cans – used for soft drinks, beer and other products – were being recycled in the UK.
And she asked how much money was being recovered from the sale of it. Experts say £54m can be made each year by simply recycling the cans properly.
The Mirror has seen data showing the Reform flagship councils in Durham, Lancashire and Kent have all said they make nothing. Durham admitted a private company keeps all its aluminium money while Kent said its aluminium goes to USA and Thailand.
Many councils are letting private waste management companies make millions of pounds for themselves selling cans to India, China and more recently the USA. Ms Munt told the Mirror that Donald Trump’s USA was a big concern.
She said “Trump knows how important recycled aluminium is – so he’s exempted it from his tariffs. He is grabbing as much as he can, and our waste companies and some of our councils are helping him do it.”
The Local Government Association says that councils should get a larger share of the financial value generated from household recyclables
It’s a subject close to Ms Munt’s heart and she certainlywalks the walk as well as talking the talk.
She said: “For many years I have been collecting used aluminium from businesses in my constituency. Once I’ve collected enough, I sell it to our local scrap dealer and donate the money to local charities.
“Recycled aluminium is roughly ten times the value of mixed plastics and several times the value of paper or cardboard. As aluminium can be recycled indefinitely, this makes it by a very wide margin, the most valuable material that councils collect from households.”
The Mirror has contacted Nottinghamshire County Council for comment.
