Technological watch

Viridor has won a contract from East Sussex County Council to process around 50,000t of dry mixed recyclables a year until June 2022.As part of the £20m contract, the recycling and waste management firm will receive street recyclables including paper, cardboard, plastic bottles, pots, tubs, trays, aluminium cans, steel cans and glass from the region.The items will come from all five districts and boroughs including Eastbourne and Hastings Borough, Lewes, Rother and Wealden district councils.The recyclate will be sorted into high-quality commodities, which then will be sold into the recycling markets.
The company will sort the recycled material at its Crayford Materials Recycling Facility before processing the plastics collected at its specialist recycling plants, such as Rochester Polymers Recycling Facility in Kent and Skelmersdale Polymers Reprocessing Facility in Lancashire.
Viridor local authority development head Simon Prior said: “Our internal bid and development team’s submitted a high-quality bid and we are delighted to be awarded the contract to continue our work with East Sussex directly.“Processing the county’s high-quality recyclables provide high-quality resources to support the growing circular economy. In addition, our social value proposition provides the opportunity for local environmental-based projects to apply for grants from a new joint East Sussex Viridor board.”East Sussex County Council will receive data on the collected recyclate quality performance and will use it to gauge and improve community recycling rates.There is an option to extend the seven-year contract for two additional two-year periods.Viridor renewed its mixed dry recycling programme contract with Suffolk County Council for ten years in January.