Rochford district council is celebrating after today (November 3) being named by Defra as the top performing council for recycling, composting and reuse in England for 2010/11 with a recycling rate of 66%.
But, confusion reigns over the performance of South Oxfordshire in the official figures. While the council claims to achieved a 70% recycling rate for the year which would put it first – (see letsrecycle.com story) the official figures put it in second place with 65%.
In a statement released this afternoon, South Oxfordshire said it believed there may have been an interpretation discrepancy in some underlying data which has reduced its rate by several percentage points and said it was liaising with Defra and the Environment Agency over the matter.
In August, South Oxfordshire said that it had achieved the 70% recycling and composting rate despite letsrecycle.com noting that the governments WasteDataFlow database had only recorded a 66.29% average recycling and composting rate for the council for the first three quarters of the year. At the time, the council said that the figures on WasteDataFlow were wrong and were going to be amended because they did not take into account a reduced rejection rate at the materials recycling facilities operated by its contractor Biffa and also because it had found some new markets for lower-grade waste paper (see letsrecycle.com story).
Top performers
As predicted by letsrecycle.com, other top-performers in this years league table include Surrey Heath borough council (64.7%), Bournemouth borough council (63.9%), Cotswold district council (60.4%) and Staffordshire Moorlands (60.2%). Staffordshire Moorlands was the top-performing council in both 2008/09 and 2009/10.
Meanwhile at the other end of the scale, Ashford borough council in Kent reported the lowest recycling and composting performance for the year at just 14%, followed by the London boroughs of Newham (15%) and Lewisham (18%).
The breakdown of recycling performance by local authority was published this afternoon. The figures were meant to be released this morning alongside data showing that England as a whole recycled 41.2% of its waste (see letsrecycle.com story), but were delayed due to reporting issues.
Rochford
In Rochford in Essex, the local authority operates a three bin system one for residual waste, one for garden and kitchen waste and one for dry recyclables including glass, tins and cans, plastic, newspapers and magazines and cardboard. The bin for green and food waste is collected weekly by its contractor SITA UK, while the other two are collected on alternate weeks.
The council last year attracted the praise of communities secretary of state Eric Pickles, who said he was quite impressed by the scheme (see letsrecycle.com story) – despite being generally critical of councils which collect residual waste fortnightly.
Welcoming the publication of the figures today, Rochfords portfolio holder for the environment, Councillor Mike Steptoe, said: Weve always known that residents in the Rochford district go the extra mile and work hard to ensure that they recycle as many materials as possible. Now its official, not only are they once again the best in the county and the best in the Eastern region, but also the best in England when it comes to recycling rates.
Id like to thank the recycling team at the council who work hard to ensure the scheme works smoothly as well as our contractors SITA UK who collect the waste and UPM who process the materials at their facility. But my biggest thanks and most praise must go to all the residents in the district who do so much every week to ensure they recycle as much as possible.
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The general manager of SITA UK, Steve Holgate, added: We are extremely proud of both the residents of Rochford district and the staff at SITA UK who have put in a great deal of effort to achieve this fantastic record of having the highest recycling record in the country.
We believe this has been done by working closely with Rochford district council and collecting recyclable and compostable items on alternate weeks from residents including tins and cans, plastic, newspapers as well as all types of food and garden waste.
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