A NEW refuse round is to be introduced in an East Lancashire borough to cut a backlog in the collection of toxic domestic upholstery and bulky items.

Hyndburn Council has run up a three week backlog for sofas, chair and cushions which contain persistent organic pollutants or POPs.

Now it is to bring in a new refuse collection just for the items which can no longer be sent to landfill tips at an annual cost of £84,151.

At the beginning of this month there were 149 POPs items to collect and 264 recyclable bulky still to be collected despite the overtime working of waste disposal teams which had cut the backlog from eight weeks to three.

The council's cabinet has agreed to find the £50,540 to pay for the extra round for the remainder of the current financial year 2023/24.

But it will have decide whether to fund it from council tax or an extra charge for collection to households after March 31.

A report by Hyndburn Council environmental services boss Cllr Steven Smithson to colleagues says: "The Environment Agency has confirmed the widespread presence of very large quantities of POPs and other hazardous chemicals in both the textiles and foam of waste upholstered domestic seating.

"These chemicals were used as flame retardants and are now banned.

"New legislation came into effect on January 1 which no longer permits POPs waste to be sent to landfill. This means waste containing POPs must be incinerated.

"Waste upholstered domestic seating is defined as any item of upholstered seating of a household type from households or businesses - for example sofas, sofa beds, armchairs, kitchen and dining room chairs, stools and foot stools, home office chairs, futons, bean bags, floor, and sofa cushions.

"Previously the Council collected two types of bulky waste items, those being recyclable (such as fridges, timber, mattresses) and non-recyclable (such as sofas or carpets) via two collection rounds. The collection of most non-recyclable bulky waste would be on bin day via a refuse collection vehicle collecting domestic residual waste (grey bin) and a separate round collecting recyclable bulky items.

"Having looked at a number of different ways to deal with this new waste stream, the only sustainable method is to have an additional collection round for collecting the POPs items.

"This will mean that non-recyclable bulky items will be collected on grey bin day, recyclable bulky items via the current recyclable bulky waste items round and POPs items via the proposed new collection round."