Copeland council, in Cumbria, and Tendring council, in Essex, were inspected for recycling, refuse collection and other related services. Commission inspectors criticised Tendring’s recycling, but said that it “provides quality refuse collection”.
Inspectors found that public satisfaction with opportunities to recycle was low and that Tendring only recycles just above an average amount of waste compared with other councils.
The council had responded to earlier public criticism by expanding its kerbside collection to cover the whole district. This meant it was likely to improve on last year’s 11% recycling arte and hit its 16% target by 2003/04, inspectors said.
The Audit Commission noted that the weight of household waste collected is low, but said this might be result from the success of home composting. Copeland’s refuse collection was a reliable and efficient service, and of high standard. But inspectors said its recycling levels were low, and a high amount of waste was collected per household.
Copeland has some recycling facilities but their locations are “not accurately advertised” and lacked direction signs. Funding arrangements for some of the proposed recycling initiatives were not yet in place, inspectors noted.
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