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Audit Commission finds 76% of English councils offer kerbside collection

Data released by the Audit Commission shows that 76% of English local authorities are offering a kerbside collection of some sort. And, 66% of councils claim to offer home composting equipment to all their residents.

The figures come in the Commission’s publication on “Performance indicators for English councils for 1999/2000”.
The statistics also put Bournemouth Borough Council ahead of Daventry Council in the recycling tonnage (per household) league table, but Daventry actually has the higher recycling rate of 35.2% compared to Bournemouth’s 30%.

Bournemouth recycles 0.4 tonnes of household waste collected per household but its residents generate more waste per household and the council still does not recycle 0.93 tonnes per household per year. However, Bournemouth’s net refuse collection costs are substantially below those of Daventry at 28.40 per tonne with Daventry spending 43.56 per tonne.

Other figures of note are the two unitary authorities of Bath and North East Somerset with 0.3 and Rutland with 0.29. Daventry is a district council and so its achievements are stronger because it cannot include recycled civic amenity site material as well as the two sources of kerbside and banks that both unitary and districts can include in the figures. (A county council and waste disposal authority would only include material they have recycled.)

In London the data shows that community recycling schemes, such as in Ealing, can push up recycling rate. Ealing collects 0.13 tonnes per household for recycling but it does have a generally high waste rate at 1.08 tonnes not recycled. In contrast Islington has a lower recycling rate at 0.03 but its waste not recycled per household is 0.7 tonnes.

Poor performers

The poor performers appear to be Manchester with 0.01 per tonne recycling per household and a massive 1.58 tonnes per household not recycled. Just behind Manchester with 0.02 tonne recycling rates are Trafford, Caradon, Amber Valley, Chester le Street, Sedgefield and Blyth Valley.

Costs of refuse disposal varied greatly in metropolitan areas. Manchester managed to reach the dizzy heights of 44.82 per tonne compared to Merseyside’s competitive 30.30. East London Waste recorded 33.01, North London 32.95 and Western Riverside in London 37.60.

The highest and lowest net costs per household of refuse collection are to be found in two neigbouring London boroughs. Hackney comes in at 55.54 with Tower Hamlets down to a low of 13.18.

Source

Local Authority Performance Indicators Council Services Compendium for England 1999/2000 (ISBN 186240 2647) is available from Audit Commission Publications on freephone 0800 502030 priced 75. It is also available as data files in the Performance Indicators section of the Audit Commission website.

Letsrecycle.com users of the data should note that the figures are on an Excel spreadsheet. Notes to the data are to be found at cell number 509 with recycling and waste data running from columns D1 to E3.

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