A HAMPSHIRE waste partnership has come under fire after it was revealed that most of the county’s waste paper and cardboard is being sent halfway round the world to be recycled.

The Gazette can reveal that 67 per cent of the county’s recycling was shipped 11,000 nautical miles across the world from Southampton to Guandong Province in China between April and June this year, instead of being recycled in the UK.

Environmental campaigners have slammed the scheme, calling it inappropriate, inefficient and harmful to the planet.

All of Hampshire’s councils, including Basingstoke and Deane Borough Council and Hampshire County Council, are part of a long-standing partnership – Project Integra – with waste disposal firm Veolia.

As part of the partnership, the waste disposal firm is responsible for looking after more than 700,000 tonnes of waste that is collected across Hampshire each year.

The materials, which includes paper, card, plastic and metals, are then segregated at two Material Recycling Facilities (MRFs) across Hampshire and are then marketed by Veolia to re-processors.

A spokesman for Hampshire County Council confirmed that between April and June this year, 67 per cent of the total recycled material – of which 13,500 tonnes was paper material – was exported to China.

Councillor Seán Woodward, chair of Project Integra, said: “The recent closure of a number of UK paper mills (notably UPM Shotton and Aylesford Newsprint) has resulted in a significant reduction in available UK paper processing capacity which has led to significant market fluctuation and instability.

“This has consequently resulted in a need for all local authorities to identify and secure alternative markets to continue to recycle this material.

“In order to ensure that Hampshire paper continues to be recycled, Veolia has sought alternative markets both in the UK and abroad. As a result, Hampshire paper is currently being processed in the UK as well as being exported to paper mills in China for recycling.”

He added that the project continues to work with Veolia UK to ensure the waste is recycled in the “most sustainable and cost effective way”.

The borough council’s environment chief, Cllr Hayley Eachus, said the county council arranges the recycling as part of the partnership and the borough council collects recyclable material from bins around Basingstoke and Deane. She said the borough council was aware the paper was going to China.

But Basingstoke environmental campaigner Martin Heath, who is the director of Basingstoke Energy Services Co-operative and co-founder of Basingstoke Transition Network, said the paper should be recycled locally to provide electricity.

He said: “The problem is we create far too much waste in Hampshire to start with, and we don’t recycle much of it and what we do recycle now gets shipped to China which is totally inappropriate behaviour.

“What is the point?

“This is not the way to run a modern economy, it is inefficient, inappropriate and it doesn’t do the planet much good either.”

According to the county council, exporting the paper to China does not cost Hampshire taxpayers any extra money and any revenue raised is shared around all of the councils and Veolia.

Basingstoke and Deane Borough Council pay £14,983 a year to be part of the Project Integra partnership.

Alan Stone, the leader of the Hampshire UKIP branch, said he had spoken to a paper mill in Kent which would be willing to recycle paper from Hampshire.

He said: “At a time when we are all told to reduce our carbon footprint, shipping the waste to China only increases it dramatically, despite adequate recycling facilities existing in the UK.”