Statistics from the 2021/22 financial year, which ran from April 2021 to March 2022, are laid out in a report which is to go before the Devon Authorities Strategic Waste Committee at a meeting this week (19 October).
The waste committee is the waste disposal authority for waste collection authorities across the county, including: East Devon, Exeter, Mid Devon, North Devon, South Hams, Teignbridge, Torridge, West Devon and Torbay.
Written by Meg Booth, Devon county council’s director of climate change, environment and transport, the report points out that, in contrast to the trends across the county, East Devon reached its highest recycling rate so far, increasing by 1% from 60% in 2020/21.
Alongside East Devon, Torbay recorded an increase of 1.4% in 2021/22, taking the waste collection authority’s recycling rate up to 37.1%.
The county’s remaining waste collection authorities saw their recycling rates either remain static or fall.
The document attributes the decrease in recycling to service disruption and changes in residents’ behaviours due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
‘Aligned option’
The report said: “As Devon’s highest performer, East Devon was the first Devon authority to exceed the 60% recycling rate in 2019/20 through its comprehensive ‘aligned option’ kerbside collection service.”
DASWC’s ‘aligned option’ for kerbside collections includes weekly dry recycling and food waste collections, three weekly-residual waste collections and chargeable garden waste collections.
The aligned option sees the same materials collected at the same frequency across Devon and Torbay to create “simplicity” for householders and for the financial benefits, according to the council.
Decrease
The most striking fall was recorded in South Hams, where the recycling rate fell by 8% compared to the previous year. The report explained that this was “largely an outcome of the service disruption that has occurred due to several factors”. It added that steps have been taken to rectify some of these issues, including taking the service back in-house, which is hoped to help the authority move to the waste committee-aligned option next year.
Exeter also experienced a reduction in recycling rate by 2.3% to 25.5%, the report said. This is the authority’s lowest performance since 2004, and 11% lower than its peak of 36.9% in 2010/11, it continued. In this case, steps are also being taken “to improve the materials recycling facility performance as well as introducing a pilot food waste collection which should enable Exeter to begin to improve on its current performance”.
Future plans
The report outlined the Devon authorities’ plan to undertake a waste compositional analysis of the residual waste stream during this autumn. These results are set to allow more targeted and relevant communications and resident engagement to ensure the right waste is in the right bin with subsequent improved performance and reduced cost benefits.
Additionally, further work to reduce costs and increase performance is said to be taking place at Torbay and Devon’s household waste recycling centres. In Torbay, this includes charges for building and non-household streams introduced in 2021 as well as a site booking service to ensure only domestic users can access the sites with household waste.
In Devon, charges already apply for non-household streams and the authority is continuing to roll out its van permit scheme, the document continued. The Devon scheme was launched in April for Exeter HWRCs, “leading to a reduction in waste and less congestion at the sites”. Teignbridge and East Devon HWRCs launched the van permit scheme in July. Under the plans, all of Devon’s HWRCs will be subject to it by 2023.
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