Defra funding helps Gloucestershire reach 30% recycling rate

The achievement by the county and its districts has been helped by two pots of funding from the Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs and the Waste and Resources Action Programme.

Defra provided 1.65 million in order for the partnership to increase its kerbside recycling coverage. Gloucestershire also received an additional 171,000 for communications, which was topped up by the WRAP grant of 467,900.

Thanks to the funding almost all of the 247,000 households in Gloucestershire are serviced by a kerbside recycling collection and participation rates have been increased thanks to an advertising campaign. Around two thirds of county homes also now have their garden waste collected.

All of the districts in Gloucestershire are now providing a fortnightly collection of paper, glass and cans – while some districts also pick up plastic and textiles. Gloucester city council is collecting its recyclables on a weekly basis.

One of the Gloucestershire districts – Tewkesbury – is also set to implement an alternate weekly collection service this year, which could see the county's other districts following suite.

Publicity
The county council's publicity campaign included road shows, leaflets, radio adverts and a range of outdoor advertising.

Wayne Lewis, Gloucestershire Waste Partnership co-ordinator, said: “Engaging the public is one of the most important challenges we face if we are to continue to improve our recycling performance and meet national targets.

“The funding we received from WRAP has helped promote recycling and waste minimisation to residents throughout Gloucestershire. We have increased levels of householder participation in our recycling schemes from 61% to 68.5% over the campaign,” he added.

The partnership is now looking ahead to the next two years, where it has set itself the target of pushing its recycling rate up to 33%. According to Mr Lewis, it will be targeting low performance areas in order to further boost recycling participation rates.

He added: “We have included bring sites in the form of wheeled bins at many of the multiple occupancy resedencies in the county, but more work also needs to be done to boost participation in this area.”

Gloucestershire county council is currently considering its options for managing residual waste in the long-term, after abandoning moves towards a Private Finance Initiative contract in September 2005 (see letsrecycle.com story).