Cambridgeshire County Council U-turn on sofa recycling centre ban

Cambridgeshire County Council has found an "interim solution" to allow soft furnishings to be stored before incineration

A county council has made a U-turn on a ban on soft furnishings being accepted at its recycling centres.

Cambridgeshire County Council had said sofas, beanbags and cushions could not be taken to its nine centres from 1 January due to new disposal rules.

It has now found an "interim solution" and these items will be accepted again.

The authority has apologised to residents for the "concern" caused and thanked them for their understanding.

The Environment Agency had said sofas, cushions and chairs must be incinerated from 1 January, to get rid of harmful persistent organic pollutants.

The county council, which is responsible for the disposal of local council collected waste, does not have an incinerator facility and stopped accepting upholstered seating while it looked for a solution.

Its announcement led to concerns about the potential for fly-tipping, the Local Democracy Reporting Service said.

New environmental rules mean old sofas and soft furnishings have to be incinerated instead of going into landfill

The county council's executive director of place and sustainability, Steve Cox, said: "We don't underestimate the concerns last week's sudden announcement will have caused many of our residents, and we would like to apologise to them for that, and thank them for their patience and understanding.

"Changes to the way we are allowed to safely dispose of these items meant we were given an extremely short timeframe to deal with waste that could no longer be put into landfill, which had to be stored separately from any other waste before being incinerated.

"As a county council that traditionally doesn't use incineration for its waste, we didn't have an easy or immediate solution to hand."

Councillor Lorna Dupre, chair of the environment and green investment committee, said the authority now had "safe and compliant temporary solutions" that would allow this type of waste to be collected until it was able to be incinerated.

The change did not affect Peterborough as the city council has an energy recovery facility where non-recyclable waste is incinerated and turned into heat and electricity.