What: Trial of new recycling vehicle.

When: Monday 13 November at 3pm.

Where: The junction of Calonne Road and Burghley Road, SW19.

A recycling trial aimed at increasing convenience for residents and collection capacity will take place this afternoon.

Merton Council is currently exploring the practicalities of a compactor style vehicle, which offers street collection teams extra capacity and a single storage unit, when picking up mixed recyclables, including glass. The benefits of the vehicle are that recyclables could be mixed, as opposed to being separated, making it more convenient for residents.

The present fleet of vehicles collect paper, glass and mixed tins, plastics and cardboard recyclables in three separate compartments. However they do not possess the compacting facility, which means that of the three compartments, the mixed recyclable one is often full before the other two. This problem challenges Merton’s drive towards efficiency, as the vehicle then has to make a drop before all the compartments are full.

The compactor vehicle being trialled is designed to collect glass and all other recyclables, and it can also be used as conventional refuse collection vehicle.

The objectives of the trial are to ascertain if the compactor vehicle can in fact collect all recyclables and to obtain information on whether or not a multi-material collection service is a viable alternative in Merton.