Sign up for our newsletter

Warwickshire Climate Alliance

Warwickshire Climate Alliance is an umbrella organisation of Warwickshire environmental groups, devoted to pushing for stronger action within the county on the climate emergency.

Upcoming Events

Sign up to our mailing list

We will only use your email to send you occasional updates.

Donate via People's Fundraising

Our Aims

We aim to lobby and collaborate with county-wide agencies to develop a serious plan for transition to net zero greenhouse gas emissions as quickly as possible, and we seek collaborations with other organisations to develop ideas for reaching that goal.

Public Awareness

We work to raise public awareness of the challenges of climate change, and to enhance the local connections that allow campaigners to share knowledge and collaborate in developing local campaigns.

Our Partners

We know that there are lots of groups already active in the area; we want to provide a way for everyone to see what everyone else is doing, and to provide a first port of call for someone who would like to become active but doesn’t know who to contact. The Environmental Groups Page contains a list of local groups and provides links to their websites.
Climate and Nature Bill
You may have seen that the Climate and Nature Bill has been selected for a vote in Parliament on 24th January. 227 MPs have already committed to supporting the Bill so it has a fair chance of passing. If it did, it would lead to a step change in government action on the climate and nature emergencies: among other things, it would make it legally binding on the government to phase out fossil fuels as quickly as possible, to address our overseas footprint, and to ensure the beginnings of a visible reversal of the decline of the natural world by 2030. 

So it’s worth expending a bit of effort on! Among Warwickshire MPs only Manuela Perteghella, MP for Stratford, has committed to supporting the Bill.


Warwickshire Climate Alliance has written to the other local MPs – Jodie Gosling, John Slinger, Rachel Taylor, Matt Western, and Sir Jeremy Wright – to urge them both to support the Bill and, importantly, to pledge to be in Parliament to vote for it on January 24th. Please, if you are one of these MPs’ constituents, take the time to write to them to urge them to back the Bill. You can use the Zero Hour website to do this. 

I know there are always many things one could be writing to one’s MP about, but this is one of those moments when concerted pressure could achieve a big result. The existing legislation, the Climate Change Act of 2008, was achieved through a campaign just like this one, and the Act been used to take the government to court on several occasions to force them to develop more serious net zero plans.

If you’re a member of a climate or nature group outside of the Stratford area, please also consider doing some campaigning to put more pressure on your MP to back the Bill. You could try writing to them as a group (please feel free to borrow from our letter if that helps!), asking to meet them to discuss the issue, setting up a petition, a letter-writing campaign, a press release or letter to your local newspaper, or something else altogether! You can read a slightly longer summary of some of the good things in the CAN Bill in our letter (see below), or you can read the Bill and briefings about it at the Zero Hour website.

Current Actions and Issues

Letter to MPs on the Climate and Nature Bill

If you are not in the Stratford upon Avon constituency, please write to your MP to urge them to support the Climate and Nature Bill. You could adapt the following letter, which WCA has sent.

Dear [MPs name]

We are writing as an umbrella organisation representing groups across Warwickshire that are working to combat climate change and to protect and restore nature. We believe the climate emergency and the damage we are doing to the natural systems that sustain us are the greatest issues facing humanity today.

We are delighted to see that the Climate and Nature Bill will now advance to a Second Reading in the House of Commons on January 24th, having been picked to do so by the new MP for the South Cotswolds constituency, Dr Roz Savage. As a Warwickshire MP, we would like to ask you to join 227 MPs and Peers across the political parties in pledging your support for the Bill, and to ensure that you are available to vote in favour of it on January 24th.

Like the 2008 Climate Change Act, the CAN Bill is non-party political. It links the climate and nature crises to give us the best chance of limiting emissions to 1.5°C, if that is still possible, and to reverse (rather than merely halt) the decline of nature. It would improve on existing legislation, including the Climate Change Act and the Environment Act, in several key ways:

It would unambiguously require the phasing out of fossil fuels as quickly as possible, ending the culture of delay and greenwashing promoted by the fossil fuel industry and their allies in the media.

By linking the climate crisis and the decline of natural biodiversity, the Bill ensures decarbonisation will not take place at the expense of the natural environment.

By requiring visible reversal of the decline of nature by 2030, it opens opportunities for carbon sequestration from the restoration of woodlands and hedgerows, rivers, peatlands and wetlands.
The Bill would mandate a just transition, by ensuring financial support and retraining for workers in fossil fuel and other affected industries.

In order to secure as broad a social consent as possible for a green transition that will impact the lives of everyone, the Bill would ensure involvement of ordinary people in planning the transition through a Climate and Nature Assembly.

It will ensure emissions reductions at home are not achieved by simply offshoring them, by requiring that the UK take action to reduce its carbon emissions and ecological impacts overseas, as existing legislation does not. Carbon emissions will harm the life chances of future generations wherever they are released. We cannot solve the problem with an ‘island mentality’.

You can learn more about the Bill, and find lists of supporting politicians and organisations here. The Bill itself can be read here.

We believe this is a vital opportunity to ensure that we are doing everything we can to try to limit global heating. As the planet heats beyond 1.5°C over pre-industrial temperatures, scientists consider it ‘likely’ we will trigger irreversible transformations, such as the undermining of the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets, and the transition of the Amazon rainforest to grassland. These transformations will have a devastating impact on human societies and the natural world. According to the latest State of the Climate Report, written by leading climate scientists, “Climate change has already displaced millions of people, with the potential to displace hundreds of millions or even billions. That would likely lead to greater geopolitical instability, possibly even partial societal collapse.”

Since entering government, both Keir Starmer and his Foreign Secretary, David Lammy, have spoken of the existential threat of climate change in speeches to the UN. At the 79th session of the UN General Assembly, the UK joined other nations in adopting a Declaration for Future Generations, in recognition of the impact our inaction will have on future generations. Passing the Climate and Nature Bill would help restore hope to the young, demonstrate world leadership, and uphold these commitments we have made to the United Nations and the world.

Please commit to supporting the Climate and Nature Bill and to turning up to vote for it at its Second Reading on the 24th January.

We look forward to hearing from you.



Pension fund divestment poster

Pension Fund Divestment

Campaign to persuade Warwickshire County Council to divest its pension fund from fossil fuel companies.
Sustainable Futures

Response to WCC Sustainable Futures

River Avon

Sewage Pollution on the River Avon

Cement

Cemex

Rugby Cement- planning application to store recycled materials to add to cement and reduce “embedded carbon”
Try your hand at our climate quiz
 From Blue Bin to Paper Mill

From Blue Bin to Paper Mill

Friday, August 2, 2024

What happens after our recycling is collected?

by Dr Amanda Doyle

The UK exports hundreds of thousands of tonnes of plastic waste for recycling, and I had started to wonder if the containers I put in my recycle bin would just end up creating a pollution problem in other countries. I visited the Sherbourne Recycling facility in Coventry along with members of the Warwickshire Climate Alliance and Stratford Climate Action to find out what happens after our recycling is collected and why people in the area don’t need to worry about recycling being sent abroad.

Keeping the recycling in the UK

Sherbourne is a materials recycling facility (MRF) that uses the latest technology and AI to sort different materials collected from residential kerbside commingled recycling bins. This allows it to separate out the plastics, papers, glass and metal with very little contamination. As the sorted product – known as recyclate – has a high purity of 99%, it can be accepted by facilities in the UK who then process it into new products. Conventional sorting facilities have a much lower purity recyclate which is not accepted by UK facilities and results in it being sent abroad.

The MRF opened in 2023 and is a partnership with eight local councils covering 1.5m households. Local councils are required to collect kerbside recycling, but there is no rulebook about what to do with it afterwards which can create problems. Typically, councils must source new contracts with the private sector every couple of years. In order to create a more reliable local recycling system, all five local councils in Warwickshire, along with Coventry City, Walsall, and Solihull have a 25 year partnership with Sherbourne Recycling.

Technologically advanced sorting

Our group were given a tour of the facility and the first thing that struck me was the noise of the machinery – I was glad that the PPE included earplugs.

The tour started with the manual sorting section, where the residue – items that can’t be recycled – is removed at the start of the process. Our tour guide went over to the collection bin to see what inappropriate items had made it today and pulled out a fire extinguisher. I found this quite shocking from a safety point of view, but I can’t say I was entirely surprised. Sherbourne’s residue is not sent to landfill, and is instead sent to a cement kiln to provide fuel for cement production.

We got a peek inside a trommel – a machine that performs an initial separation of items by size – which resembled the drum of a gigantic washing machine. From here the streams of waste are whisked away on conveyor belts to a ballistic sorter, which looked like multiple escalators that move vertically up and down. This separates 2D material – such as cardboard and plastic film – from 3D materials such as cans.

Items are initially sorted by size in the trommel. Credit: Sherbourne Recycling

Items are initially sorted by size in the trommel. Credit: Sherbourne Recycling

We were then shown a machine that can separate plastic from paper by allowing the paper to fall over a ledge while the plastic is blown into a tube by air currents.

Moving on to the next stages of sorting along the conveyor belts. Credit: Sherbourne Recycling

Moving on to the next stages of sorting along the conveyor belts. Credit: Sherbourne Recycling

The highlight for me was watching the robotic arms removing contaminants on the mixed paper line. The arms can pick out up to 70 items a minute and this where the AI comes in. We were shown a screen of the AI system at work; it uses near-infrared scanners above the conveyor belt to rapidly scan every item and highlights the different types of items in different colours. If something shouldn’t be there, the AI tells the arms to remove it.

The AI has the potential to be programmed to sort materials that are currently not easily recycled. For example, it can pick out soft plastics, but the limited end market in the UK for this type of recyclate means that there are currently very limited places to send it. From 2027, it will be a legal requirement for councils to collect soft plastics and Sherbourne will be ready to sort them. However, there is still a need for more facilities that can process these materials..

I admit to having some concerns about the ethics of AI due to concerns over replacing people’s jobs and also contributing to the spread of misinformation online. However, it also has the potential to be used as a really powerful tool and thankfully that is what’s happening here. There are only five people manually sorting waste and removing the residue – which is fewer people than at a traditional MRF. However, the remainder of the staff are trained as technicians and engineers to manage the machinery and the AI system.

At the end of the tour we were shown the final products destined for the UK paper mill, which are one tonne blocks of paper and cardboard. Some sneaky plastic was evident, including a bottle top. Perhaps those annoying new plastic bottles that keep the top attached are worth it after all.

Setting a benchmark

While our first priority should be to reduce and reuse when possible, for the items that end up destined for recycling we need more places like Sherbourne Resource Park.

Sherbourne is a local initiative, however the company sees itself as setting a benchmark for the recycling industry in the UK. Similar schemes could be replicated in other regions to enable local councils to have better control over their recycling and to pave the way towards a circular economy.

An overall view of the interior of the facility. Credit: Sherbourne Recycling

An overall view of the interior of the facility. Credit: Sherbourne Recycling

No comments yet
Search