County council officials are hoping a suspension on accepting items such as sofas, chairs and other seating waste will only act as a short-term problem. 

As of January 1, upholstered domestic seating waste is not being accepted at Cambridgeshire County Council’s nine household waste recycling centres (HWRCs). 

“This is a temporary suspension of this service until we have alternative routes of disposal secured and fully in place; as such it is not a ban,” said a county council spokesperson. 

The suspension came after the county council was given until December 31 by the Environment Agency (EA) to comply with laws on disposing waste containing persistent organic pollutants (POPs). 

This legislation requires any POPs waste to be incinerated and not landfilled, including any non-POPs waste that may have come into contact with it and may be contaminated.   

Cambridgeshire County Council uses landfill sites to dispose waste that cannot be recycled. 

“Because Cambridgeshire’s waste disposal methods rely on the use of landfill, it has been challenging to secure compliant disposal routes until this final guidance was released [on December 19, 2022],” said the county council spokesperson. 

“We appreciate that this has the potential to impact our residents, however, we are working hard to ensure this service can be resumed as soon as possible.” 

The EA wrote to local authorities and their contractors in August to tell them about the waste issue and requiring them to comply with the law on waste containing POPs. 

All HWRCs have a permit with the EA to lawfully accept upholstered domestic seating waste. 

But the EA, who with DEFRA have been in contact with local authorities about the issue since February 2021, say it is up to individual local authorities on whether they accept this waste. 

“There are no restrictions on HWRCs accepting waste domestic seating containing POPs,” an EA spokesperson said. 

“Waste domestic seating containing POPs above the threshold limits needs to be identified and appropriately managed in a way that destroys the POPs chemicals.  

“This means that it cannot be landfilled, recycled or prepared for reuse.” 

The spokesperson added that almost all local authorities they have contacted are making provision for the correct disposal of domestic seating waste. 

For more information on how to manage domestic seating waste with POPs, visit: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/manage-waste-containing-persistent-organic-pollutants-pops.