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'THERE WAS ALL SORTS OF DEBRIS IN FRONT OF THE BAYS WHERE CARS NORMALLY PARK. IT WAS UNBELIEVABLE' 10:21, 21 May 2025 Rubbish is piling up at a tip amid a struggle to cope with

demand. Photographs show mounds of items waiting to be sorted at Torfaen council’s household recycling centre in New Inn. The site is operated by FCC Environment on behalf of the council,

which has said household recycling centres across the UK are affected by an increase in materials being brought to them and issues with “recycling end markets”. A regular visitor to the

site, who is from Cwmbran and who asked not to be named, said he was struck by the state of the site compared to his last visit a month earlier. “There was all sorts of debris in front of

the bays where cars normally park,” he said. “It was unbelievable and last month the area was pristine." The bay for wood has no room for any more items to be deposited. But the visitor

said: "There are no signs to say: ‘No more wood’ or: ‘We’re full’." He questioned whether there were adequate staffing levels at the site, which remains open to the public to

deposit items. Torfaen council said the closure of some other UK plants that process or burn recycled wood has resulted in a capacity shortfall for dealing with 30,000 extra tonnes of wood

each week. At times spaces between skips at the New Inn centre have had to be used for storage, which the council says is normal practice “during extremely busy times”. A council spokesman

said: “Torfaen, like the rest of the UK household recycling centre network, is experiencing significant and unprecedented uplifts in the volume of materials being brought for recycling.”

According to the council last month saw the highest tonnage rates at the centre since black bag sorting was introduced in 2019. Tonnage for this month is on track to be 33% higher than

previous years. The spokesman said: “The increase in tonnage has coincided with issues with recycling end markets, particularly for carpet and wood. "A number of board mills and biomass

plants are closed due to a combination of scheduled and unscheduled maintenance. These closures have resulted in the market being flooded with an additional 30,000 tonnes per week of wood

and this has created issues across the recycling sector.” The council has also said staffing levels at the centre have only reduced by one, from six to five, at weekends. This was achieved

through changes in shift patterns and did not result in any redundancies. The council said it had not received any formal complaints in April or so far in May. Although Torfaen’s overall

recycling rate has been increasing the council is still short of the Welsh Government’s target of reaching 70% of all its waste being recycled, which should have been achieved in 2024-25.

Article continues below In recent years the household recycling centre has recycled more than 80% of the items brought there.