Communities secretary and weekly waste collection advocate Eric Pickles, has visited Rochford district council to see how the Essex local authority has achieved the highest provisional recycling and composting rate in England for 2009/10 using alternate weekly collections of dry recyclables and residual waste and a weekly food waste service.
Mr Pickles was invited to visit the local authority by Mark Francois, Member of Parliament for Rayleigh and Wickford, last week (August 4) and was given a briefing on the council's three-bin recycling system which was introduced in July 2008.
Rochford emerged as potentially the best performing local authority for recycling and composting for 2009/10 last month, when a survey carried out by letsrecycle.com found that it achieved a 65% recycling and composting rate for the previous financial year (see letsrecycle.com story).
On his visit, Mr Pickles was said to have been “quite impressed” by Rochford's efforts and asked questions about the cost of changing the council's previous collection service, the cost of rolling out its new service with collection contractor SITA UK and the revenue the council gained from the service.
Commenting on his visit, Mr Pickles said: “This project shows that where councils work with the community people feel encouraged to play their part and recycling rates soar.”
Collections
Mr Pickles has been a staunch advocate of weekly waste collections, having written to the Audit Commission requesting it remove guidance supposedly promoting the uptake of fortnightly services (see letsrecycle.com story).
Mr Francois told letsrecycle.com that the council opted to introduce forntightly collections of dry recyclables and residual waste on alternate weeks as it believed it was the best course of action for Rochford. However, he said that the service was not automatically in conflict with Mr Pickles' views as the council also provided weekly food waste collections.
“We are quite happy with the system we have in Rochford and we are not telling anyone else how they might do it, that is a matter for them to decide as locally elected politicians,” he said. “The success we have in Rochford is because the residents have got behind it.”
Mr Pickles' visit to Rochford comes two months after the communities secretary visited the Royal borough of Windsor and Maidenhead to endorse the roll-out of its incentivised recycling rewards scheme, RecycleBank (see letsrecycle.com story).
Visit
Explaining the itinerary of Mr Pickles visit, Mr Francois said: “He came to the Civic Suite in Rayleigh, the council is headquartered in Rochford but has offices in Rayleigh. He was given a demonstration of the three bins and then he was given a detailed briefing on the nuts and bolts of the system and the background of how the system was put together.
“I think it is far to say that the Secretary of State was quite impressed by what he saw and he did ask a number of good questions about how much it costs to run, how much the new service cost to set-up and what revenue the council makes from the service.”
Councillor Terry Cutmore, leader of Rochford district council, said: “Rochford district council is committed to make a difference to our environment and it was a pleasure to be able to demonstrate to a senior government minister all the hard work we and our residents have put in to make our recycling system so successful.”
“I am sure he enjoyed his visit and has seen how the residents of Rochford have made our ‘maximise recycling' scheme such a success.”
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