The remarkable performance has seen the county borough council, which in 2009/10 was the second worst performing council in Wales, increase its recycling rate from 31% in 2009/10 to 54% in 2011/12. This puts it ahead of the average Welsh national recycling rate of 48% (see letsrecycle.com).
The improvement is a result of changes made to the waste and recycling services in the county borough by May Gurney. The contractor introduced a kerbside sort collection of recyclables in June 2010.
In addition it means Bridgend has met the Welsh statutory recycling rate of 52% a year ahead of schedule. At present only seven of the 25 Welsh councils have achieved the target.
The targets were passed in November 2010 by the National Assembly for Wales meaning Wales local authorities will be legally bound to meet recycling and composting targets of 52% in 2012/13 and 70% in 2024/25 (see letsrecycle.com story).
The county borough council said it is now planning ahead to meet the more ambitious targets.
Incredible
Commenting on the improvement, Councillor Phil White, cabinet member for communities, said: When you consider how poor we were at recycling just a few years ago, this is an incredible performance and an absolute credit to all those residents who have embraced the weekly kerbside recycling.
Because were recycling more were also sending significantly less to landfill which is great news for our future generations. What a great way to mark the second anniversary of our kerbside recycling scheme.
Steve Ashman, regional director of public sector services at May Gurney, added: It is great news to know that Bridgend is ahead of its targets. I would also like to thank residents for their efforts in recycling as much as possible, and thank our teams for the hard work and commitment they have shown. By working in partnership with BCBC we hope we can continue to make such impressive numbers.
Service
Under the contract May Gurney is responsible for the collection of waste and recycling from approximately 60,000 households, the operation of the waste management and transfer station and the running of the councils four civic amenity sites.
The changes came in in June 2010 and saw May Gurney introduce weekly collections of dry recyclables and a fortnightly collection of residual waste.
The kerbside service introduced by May Gurney sees residents use a blue bag for the collections of plastics and cans; a black box for newspapers and magazines; a further black box for glass and card; and a caddy for food waste. Residents can also recycle textiles at the kerbside in a plastic bag.
Despite spectacular improvement in the county boroughs recycling rate a report put out by the council earlier this year reveals that performance at civic amenity sites in the area needs further improvement. The recycling rate for the county boroughs CA sites was 61.38% as of March 2012.
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