A Saudi Arabian delegation has visited an East Lancashire borough to see how it deals with its rubbish, and went out with the wagons on a bin round.
They spent a day with Blackburn with Darwen council’s refuse and recycling team on Wednesday before flying on to Zurich, Switzerland, and then heading to Frankfurt, Germany.
The seven-strong fact-finding mission from the National Centre for Waste Management in Saudi Arabia is currently on a whistle-stop tour of Europe to find out what various industries are doing to get to grips with their waste management.
Accompanied by staff from consultancy business Roland Berger, their aim is to develop and improve their existing waste management infrastructure with a specific focus on segregating waste.
Along with visiting hospitals, processing facilities and industrial units across the UK, they also visited Blackburn with Darwen Council to see its practices in person.
The tour started at Blackburn's Davyfield refuse depot where the delegates were introduced to the borough's recycling system.
This includes a burgundy bin for non-recyclable waste, a blue bin for the recycling of paper and card, a grey bin for recycling glass, cans, and plastic bottles, and a brown bin for garden waste.
A discussion was had about why separating the different materials is important to ensure that as much is recycled as possible.
Currently, in Saudi Arabia, they don’t separate any waste at all but they are looking at rolling out a nationwide campaign to do this.
The delegates were also introduced to the method used for collection, including the fact that each refuse collection vehicle has a GPS tracker on it which can always be seen on a map.
To end their tour, the delegates were taken to see a refuse collection team in action – to understand how residents prepared their bins and what happened to the contents after it was picked up.
Steve Morris, Blackburn with Darwen Council's service lead for environmental operations, who co-ordinated the visit, said: "It was great to show the delegates how we do things here at Blackburn with Darwen.
"They were incredibly keen to learn about our system and asked many questions about all elements of the process."
Phil Riley, leader of Blackburn with Darwen Council said: "What a pleasure it was to welcome delegates from Saudi Arabia to the borough to learn from our refuse and recycling team.
"Of course, we can always do more, but we were pleased to show off the borough’s waste management system."
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