Cheshire West recycling service tops carbon table

Cheshire West and Chester councils recycling service has topped Eunomias 2012/13 carbon league table by saving the highest amount of CO2 emissions of all disposal authorities in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

However, the report also highlights a reduction in overall carbon savings in England and Wales in 2012/13, due to a decline in the amount of textiles and metals collected.

Carbon emissions saved by the councils dry recycling, garden and food waste services rose to 105 kilograms per person in 2012/13 from 88kg the previous year.

Meanwhile, North Somerset council which topped the previous years table (see letsrecycle.com story) has dropped to second place after a reduction in carbon saved over the same period from 111kg to 104kg per person.

The report is the second waste disposal authority Recycling Carbon Index published by consultancy Eunomia, which puts Powys county council in third place with savings of 102 kg per person in 2012/13 the highest in Wales.

Eunomia attributes the improvement in Powys from 88kg per person the previous year partly to the councils move from a weekly black sack and commingled recycling service to a fortnightly wheeled residual wheeled bin and kerbside sort recycling service in 2012/13.

These top three councils have achieved the highest carbon savings despite not being top performers on recycling rates, Eunomia said.

Eunomia’s Recycling Carbon Index table showing top six performers in England, Wales and Northern Ireland

Decline

Overall, however, the findings show a 3% decline in CO2 saved from recycling in England and Wales between 2011/12 and 2012/13, although Northern Irelands performance has improved by 1%.

Further CO2 improvement could be achieved in Northern Ireland, Eunomia states, through implementing more textile collections and separate food waste collections.

WasteDataFlow was the primary source of data for the Carbon Index, with Eunomia using calculations set out by Zero Waste Scotland in its Scottish Carbon Metric to convert recycling tonnages into carbon dioxide equivalents.

According to Eunomia, the reduced performance in England comes despite a small rise of 0.2% in the nations recycling rate over the same period, and is caused by a marked decline in the amount of textiles and metal collected.

Eunomia states that metals and textiles have high levels of embodied carbon and energy and the fall in their captures outweighs the gains from increased recycling of food and plastics, while the amount of food and garden waste collected generally has a smaller bearing on the carbon index.

The highest performer Cheshire West and Cheshire council, the report notes as an example, collects eight times more textiles and three times more metals than Thurrock council, one of the poor performers in the Index.

It adds that the findings show that under current government policies, England appears to be moving in the wrong direction.

Cities

Many of the council recycling services achieving the worst carbon performances in 2012/13 are in inner cities such as Central London and Cardiff.

However, while London boroughs occupied the four bottom spaces in England, Wales and Northern Ireland on the Index for 2011/12, Middlesbrough (31kg pp) and Bradford city (29kg pp) sit in the bottom four for 2012/13 alongside Tower Hamlets (31kg pp) and Lewisham (29kg pp).

In England, the report states: The gain in carbon terms is less pronounced, but generally speaking, the better performing authorities under the Index have implemented segregated food collection which can be sent for anaerobic digestion.

Eunomia said that differences in the reporting regime in Scotland meant its data was not comparable to that of rest of the UK.

James Fulford, director at Eunomia, said: The reduction in carbon benefit from household recycling in England and Wales between 2011/12 and 2012/13 highlights the importance of considering the full environmental impacts of recycling services.

It is encouraging that despite the changing composition of the recycling being collected, some authorities have managed to make impressive improvements. We need efficient collection services that effectively maximise environmental performance. The report and online tool will help waste managers to identify good practice and understand how they may need to focus their efforts to improve the environmental performance of their own services.

Alongside the report, Eunomia has also this year launched an interactive website to accompany the Index, which includes local authority statistics and graphical progress updates.