BDR Waste Partnership

girl recycling

BDR Waste Partnership

Barnsley, Doncaster and Rotherham have almost 350,000 households, which last year between them produced around 340,000 tonnes of waste – almost one tonne per household.

BDR is a partnership of Barnsley, Doncaster and Rotherham councils set up more than two decades ago to jointly manage waste generated in the three boroughs.

The Partnership secured £77.4m of Private Finance Initiative (PFI) funding from central government towards new facilities to deal with the treatment of leftover household waste, turning it into a valuable resource rather than sending it to landfill. This is waste left over after householders take out materials that can be re-used or recycled before leaving their wheeled bins or bin bags to be picked up by refuse collection vehicles.

The facility at Bolton Road, Manvers is the result of a partnership between BDR and 3SE, a consortium of Renewi (formerly Shanks) and SSE. It is diverting around 95% of waste from landfill, making a significant carbon dioxide saving. It is the first in the UK to combine a Mechanical Biological Treatment (MBT) plant and a dry Anaerobic (AD) plant, and has won a prestigious National Recycling Award for the Best Energy from Waste Initiative.

The facility extracts any remaining recyclable materials from household waste. What is left is turned into a fuel and sent to Ferrybridge in West Yorkshire to produce low carbon electricity which is supplied to the National Grid.

More than 50 jobs have been created in the Dearne Valley. A Community Liaison Group (CLG) meets regularly and acts as a two-way communication channel between the community and the 3SE and BDR team.

The BDR Partnership promotes a number of environmental and recycling campaigns, including Love Food Hate Waste and National Recycling Week.

Recycle Week 2019

Recycle week 2019 may be over but really it is just the beginning!

It's time to take recycling into our own hands. Recycling is one of the easiest ways you can help our planet. By emptying, rinsing and crushing all you can at home, we can all make a huge difference.

This year, we produced some social media posts to spread the Recycle Week messages.

Search #SouthYorkshirerecycles on Twitter and Facebook to see all our social media posts from the campaign.

Chance to take a tour

Would you like to take a look behind the scenes at the award-winning facility which is revolutionising the way we deal with leftover household waste in Barnsley, Doncaster and Rotherham?

Managing your waste in warm weather

Here are some tips to help.

Help for Community Projects

Renewi is giving a helping hand to five 'green' and healthy eating projects across Barnsley, Doncaster and Rotherham. Beneficiaries of the 2019/20 Renewi Corporate Social Responsibility Fund include a Food Bank, a school in a deprived community, and a community support group to help improve mental health. The Fund gives financial help to eligible projects in communities around the award-winning waste treatment facility at Manvers.

Changes Bring Benefits

The changes to waste collections in Rotherham introduced after a major public consultation exercise have now been rolled out across the borough. Thanks to the co-operation of householders and crews, the new arrangements are already having positive results. There has been an increase in recycling, a reduction in contamination of materials for recycling, and the amount of overall leftover household waste has reduced. Almost 40,000 households have signed up for the paid for garden waste scheme.

Find out more

Composting competition winners

Six schools each received a composting bin and £200 worth of gardening equipment for designing eye-catching posters promoting the benefits of composting. And winners of a social media competition for adults each received a compost bin.