A new £5million Household Waste and Recycling Centre (HWRC) at Pallion in Sunderland has officially opened.

It replaces the current Beach Street site which opened in the early 80's and last year handled more than 193,000 visits and over 9,600 tonnes of recyclable materials and waste.

At 16,000 sq m, the new Pallion HWRC will make it much easier for residents to recycle and dispose of their waste, offering much improved facilities and better access. It is capable of handling 3,000 vehicles a day and more than a million visits annually.

Councillor Graeme Miller, Leader of Sunderland City Council, said: "This is all about us listening to our residents. They told us that they wanted to see bigger and better household waste and recycling facilities and that's something we have taken on board with this fantastic new centre.

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"Sunderland is committed to being a clean green city and this brilliant facility will make it much easier for our residents to recycle and dispose of their waste. It should also make for a much more pleasant experience with better access to the site, undercover skips, generous parking, manoeuvring and offloading spaces and no steps between parking spaces and skips. It is also large enough to provide for Sunderland's city's bulky waste and recycling needs well into the future as our city continues to grow, including any future recycling opportunities.

"In line with the council's commitment to the green agenda, the new site is also much more energy efficient, with solar panels, rainwater harvesting and low energy lighting all helping to contribute towards our low carbon ambitions. In keeping with these green credentials, we've even used recycled concrete from the Rolls Royce buildings which once stood on the site in its construction."

The new HWRC will handle everything from bagged household and garden waste, cardboard and wood, small and small domestic appliances, TVs and computers, small fridges, metal, soil, rubble, plasterboard, fluorescent tubes, engine and vegetable oil, textiles to household recycling including plastic, cans, glass, paper. About 53.7 % per cent of all the waste currently delivered to the Beach Street site is recycled. The remainder is sent to an energy from waste facility on Teesside.