The partnership includes Hampshire’s 11 district councils, county council and the unitary authorities Portsmouth and Southampton as well as their waste contractor, Onyx Environmental subsidiary Hampshire Waste Services.
The 23.4% rate marks an improvement on the 20% reached in 2002/03, but the partnership must make considerable progress to reach its 2005/06 target of 40% recycling.
“This is down to the efforts of the Hampshire public to think more carefully about what they throw away. – – Steve Read, Project Integra
Councillor Roland Dibbs, chairman of Project Integra’s management board and member for the environment at Rushmoor borough council, said that the figures were “very encouraging”.
Among the authorities in the partnership, recycling rates ranged from 32% to 6% in 2003/04. Hampshire county council achieved a 27% recycling rate, up from 25% in 2002/03.
Steve Read, executive officer for the partnership, said: “A great deal of this is down to the efforts of the Hampshire public to think more carefully about what they throw away. It’s never been easier to get recycling with 95% of Hampshire households now receiving a regular kerbside collection of recyclables such as newspapers, plastic bottles and food and drinks cans.
“In addition, there are almost 2,000 banks for a wide variety of materials, while our network of 26 household waste recycling centres (HWRCs) provide a place for residents to dispose of bulky and garden waste free of charge,” he added.
Recovery
With the county’s energy-from-waste facility at Chineham starting up last year, Project Integra says one of the “most striking changes” has been the drop in the amount it sends to landfill. Since 2002, the proportion has dropped from 80% to 65%. Over 95,000 tonnes of material was dealt with at the Chineham plant, near Basingstoke, in 2003.
Two more energy recovery facilities will open in 2005 in Marchwood and Portsmouth, each capable of diverting a further 160,000 tonnes of material a year of residual waste from landfill.
And, expansion at the Little Bushy Warren composting site near Basingstoke will raise the partnership’s green waste composting capacity to 100,000 tonnes a year. Four out of the 11 councils in Project Integra currently offer a paid-for fortnightly garden waste collection scheme, with composting sites producing the organic soil conditioner “Pro-Grow”.
One area of concern is that household waste arisings have grown from 655,474 tpa in 1995/96 to 876,469 tonnes in 2003/04. The partnership has set itself a target to reach 1995 levels of household waste generation.
The city of Southampton could find it difficult to meet its 24% target for 2005/06 with its latest recycling result at just 6%. The city was forced to suspend its roll-out of alternate weekly rubbish and recycling collections in February because of a lack of popular support. The council has now said it is waiting for the completion of the Audit Commission’s inspection of the council’s Best Value Review in August 2004 before deciding the way forward. A decision is expected before November 2004.
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