Daventry looks to become first council to attain 50% recycling

The council aims to achieve a rate of 46% for 2000/2001 and Sue Reed, Daventry County Council’s recycling officer, said: “We expect to meet our target, but if we don’t we will be very near. Our rate will definitely be more than 40%.” But she added that it was very hard to “go the extra distance” and hit 50%.

In 1999/2000 Daventry had the highest rate in the country with 35.2% and since then a kerbside collection of cardboard has been added to the service which the council introduced in January after a successful trial last summer.

Ms Reed said: “We introduced a cardboard collection to enable us to produce a better compost and we are also helping residents by taking a bulky item out of the refuse stream.”

However the scheme has not been as successful as the council’s other collections and Tony Giller, environmental management team leader, said: “Residents have really taken to the organic waste collection, saving them trips to civic amenity sites to dispose of garden waste. Cardboard inclusion, however, has not been as high as hoped and we urge residents to keep putting their torn-up card board packaging, greetings cards, phone directory covers in the brown bins and to keep composting.”

Ms Reed added that the council is launching a publicity drive to encourage people to put their cardboard out for recycling as some residents seemed unaware that they could do this.

Kerbside

Daventry’s kerbside scheme was started in 1995 and consists of a weekly collection of glass, paper, plastic, cans and clothing which are put out in blue and red boxes. Kitchen and garden waste together with cardboard are put out fortnightly in wheeled brown bins and this alternates with the refuse collection.

Between 80 and 90% of all properties in Daventry are registered as having the blue and red boxes and the brown bin. Ms Reed said that the scheme’s success could be put down to the fact that the council collects bulky recyclable items every week which means that the refuse can be collected on a fortnightly basis.

During 2000/2001 Daventry recycled 14,051 tonnes of waste. This consisted of 9,452 tonnes of organic waste, 2,735 tonnes of paper, 1,321 of glass, 567 steel, 214 plastic, 33 aluminium and 28 tonnes of textiles.