Work starts on Sunderland's £4million new household waste and recycling centre

The new site, on the former Rolls Royce site at Pallion, will replace the current Beach Street facilitiy which has reached the end of its natural life.Planning permission for the development was granted in October.

City Council Leader, Cllr Graeme Miller, said: "This is all about us listening to our residents. They told us that they wanted to see better household waste and recycling facilities and that's something we have taken on board with our plans for this fantastic new centre.

"The new household waste and recycling centre will be a vast improvement on what we have now with greatly improved facilities and better access, including a walk-in option which again is something residents have asked for.

"So it should provide for the city's bulky waste and recycling needs well into the future as Sunderland continues to grow, including any future recycling opportunities. And I'm delighted to say that we will also have a recycle and re-use shop on the site which will allow people to bring along things they no longer want and leave them to be upcycled and repurposed."

In view of its popularity, the appointment system introduced to support social distancing and reduce queuing when the current HWRC reopened after lockdown will transfer to the new site when it opens.

Cllr Miller added: "The appointment system has been really popular with residents using the Beach Street site so it makes perfect sense to carry this over to the new centre.

"Investing in the new centre with plans for a mini recycling centre in the Coalfields area also ties in with our ambitious City Plan which is all about Sunderland becoming a more dynamic, healthy and vibrant city by 2030."

The current Beach Street site is open seven days a week, only closing on Christmas Day and New Year's Day. In previous years, it has had around 40,000 visits annually and collects around 17,000 tonnes of plastic, wood, rubble, garden waste, redundant electrical appliances, such as white goods or televisions.

About 60 per cent of all the waste that is delivered to the Beach Street site is recycled. The remainder is sent to an energy from waste facility on Teesside.

The new centre is due to open in Autumn 2021.

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