Singer says stop sending waste to Northern Ireland

Dry recycling from Cambridgeshire has been transported to Newry, Northern Ireland, since March

A singer has uploaded a song to YouTube that called for two councils to stop sending waste 400 miles away and recycle it closer to home.

Dry recycling from Cambridgeshire has been transported to Newry, Northern Ireland, since March by waste management firm Re-Gen, after it won a contract with the Cambridge City Council and South Cambridgeshire District Council in January.

Folk singer Colum Sands, from Northern Ireland, produced Time for Talking Rubbish, as a "song-letter" to the councils in which he asks if they would "store leaking rubbish all along the River Cam?".

In the song, which has had more than 1,000 views, Mr Sands says "throwing rubbish somewhere else does not achieve the end".

Jean Glasberg questions why there is no recycling facility closer than Northern Ireland

Cambridge City Council in February said Re-Gen had plans to open a materials recovery facility on the UK mainland "within the first half of this year".

At city council meeting on 24 July, however, Green Party councillor Jean Glasberg said there were "still no signs that a new UK mainland [material recycling facility] has been acquired by Re-Gen, or that such an acquisition is due to take place".

As reported by the Local Democracy Service, Glasberg went on to ask what steps the authority had taken to "investigate this apparent failure".

Labour councillor Rosy Moore, cabinet member for climate action and environment, said there had been no "failure" as the contract had been awarded based on the Newry facility, and that the plans to acquire a mainland facility had only been made known afterwards.

She went on to state that Re-Gen was still continuing to pursue acquiring a UK mainland material recovery facility, but said she did not currently have an update on this facility yet.

Re-Gen says its "strategic goal" was to establish a recycling facility in Great Britain

Mr Sands, who is also part of the campaign group Rostrevor Action Respecting the Environment, said he believed that Re-Gen were "struggling with the amount of waste it was processing".

People living near Warrenpoint Port, near Newry, have complained about the smell of compacted rubbish from a Re-Gen facility at the harbour.

However, Re-Gen said that the waste from Cambridgeshire was mixed dry recyclables "which is recycled at our state-of-the-art facility and is not stored at Warrenpoint Harbour".

Re-Gen added its "strategic goal" was "to acquire a [material recycling facility] in Great Britain".