Kent saves £3 million on waste management costs

The figures come in the Kent Resource Partnership’s (KRP) annual report for 2017/18 – the partnership oversees waste management for 13 district councils in Kent.

In total, the cost of waste resource managed fell to just over £95 million for 2017/18, the report notes. On average this equates to £149 per household, per year.

Recycling

In terms of recycling rates, the partnership saw an overall rate of 46.7% for the year – an increase of 0.4% compared with 2016/17.

This included an “impressive” jump in recycling rate for Gravesham borough council by six percentage points, the report notes. This is put down to a switch from a weekly service, to alternative weekly collections for residual waste and recycling by the council in June 2017.

Gravesham saw its recycling rate hit 40.7% last year – up 6.2 percentage points from a rate of 34.5% in 2016/17.

Six Kent councils out of a total 13 authorities saw their own performance improved compared to last year, with Gravesham BC hailed as the “biggest success”.

Five authorities saw their recycling rate decrease by less than 1%, while Dartford borough council’s recycling rate was unchanged from the previous year.

‘Confident’

In total, the councils handles 708,000 tonnes of waste over the year, with the residual waste per household decreasing from the 2016/17.

KRP said, with further joint working opportunities over the coming years, it remains “confident” of achieving its 50% target by 2020/21.

Below: A graph showing overall KRP Performance vs Cost – 2012/13 to 2017/18 (Image: Kent Resource Partnership)

In 2017/18 the percentage of municipal waste sent to landfill decreased to 1.1% compared to 2.8% the previous year. And, 52.2% was used to generate energy.

Actions

Actions taken by the authority over the past year, highlighted by the report, include: a number of Keep Kent Clean initiatives, a ‘Drive Down Litter’ pilot project launch with external partners, a contribution to joint action against flytippers including Kent’s ‘Operation Assist’ day of action, and a Kent Joint Municipal Waste Management Strategy refresh.