A SITE for a new recycling centre to sort items collected at the kerbside has been purchased by a council struggling to meet its target.
Latest Welsh Government figures show Torfaen is one of ten councils across Wales that has once again failed to meet the national target that at least 70 per cent of waste is recycled, including food waste that is composted and used to generate energy.
Across Wales 12 unitary authorities achieved the target, while Torfaen along with neighbour Blaenau Gwent and Caerphilly missed it as did Cardiff, Denbighshire, Flintshire, Gwynedd, Anglesey, Merthyr Tydfil and Wrexham.
Torfaen’s recycling performance remained at just over 60 per cent for the 2024/25 financial year.
The council’s Labour cabinet launched an awareness campaign to try and boost recycling in 2023 as an alternative to plans to reduce fortnightly collections of wheelie bins that were met with a public backlash.
The council has also been attempting to overhaul its waste and recycling infrastructure but had to start the process again, in 2024, when it abandoned an agreed plan to redesign its existing Ty Coch centre in Cwmbran.
In January, the cabinet was updated on the development in a confidential session.
At a scrutiny meeting, with backbench councillors, on Tuesday, February 3 the council’s head of financial services, Robert Green, confirmed a site to sort waste and recyclables has been purchased.
Blaenavon independent member Janet Jones asked for assurance that the council’s draft 2026/27 budget has provided funding for a waste transfer station.
Mr Green said: “On the waste transfer station, obviously the site has been acquired, but the project is still generally within its infancy.”
He said it is included in the council’s capital budget, for one-off costs, with the council putting aside funding for the facility that would ultimately be funded with support of grants from the Welsh Government.
Council funding is likely to draw on money it expects to receive in the 2026/27 financial year under the UK Government’s Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) scheme which compensates local authorities for costs associated with collecting and disposing of non-recyclable materials, such as plastic film and packaging.
Torfaen received around £2.5m under the scheme this year and though it hasn’t been told how much it could receive in the new financial year it has a working assumption any funding left, after £522,000 has been used for waste education and enforcement and to meet inflation impacting the services, will be earmarked “for the capital scheme to create a new waste transfer station”.