However, the council’s expected result – for the year 2015/16 – will actually be lower than last year when it reached 67.3% with a number of other authorities also showing a reduction.
The findings come as part of letsrecycle.com’s research into local authority recycling rates ahead of official ratification of the figures by the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs.
Commenting on the survey, newly-appointed resources minister Thérèse Coffey said the figures provided evidence of what can be achieved by local authorities.
Dr Coffey said: “It is vital for our environment and our economy that we make the most of our resources. We have made tremendous progress in boosting our recycling rate, from around 11% in 2000 to nearly 45% in 2014 but we know that we can do even better.
“These figures show leading authorities recycle, compost or reuse more than 60% of their waste, clearly demonstrating what can be achieved.”
Decline
While largely in line with previous years, there has been a noticeable slip in recycling rates among the top ten collection authorities, which have this year provisionally recorded rates of between 58.6% and 66.5%.
This would indicate a decline on last year’s results, when the top ten authorities recorded rates of between 60.1% and 67.3%.
A decline of varying amounts in recycling rates was reflected in the letsreycle.com league table results, with all local authorities within the top ten either plateauing or recording lower results than in 2014/15.
Calderdale metropolitan borough council in Yorkshire felt the sharpest drop, falling from seventh in the country with 60.4% last year, to a provisional 46% in 2015/16.
Speaking to letsrecycle.com, the council blamed the decrease on a “perfect storm” of factors, which included severe flooding at the start of the year, the introduction of chargeable green waste collections, and the roll out of expanded dry recycling collections under its renewed contract with Suez.
However, it should be noted that Calderdale’s new contract with Suez and its subsequent roll out began in August 2016 – after the figures for the 2015/16 year would have already been calculated (see letsrecycle.com story).
Trafford
For a second year in a row, Trafford council in Greater Manchester looks set to trump neighbouring Stockport as the top-performing urban authority – despite its own rate having dropped from 61.9% to 60.4%. The gap between the two councils has widened, after Stockport’s provisional recycling rate fell back below 60% for the first time since 2011/12.
Commenting on the figures, a spokesperson for Trafford council said that fortnightly collections of residual waste combined with the introduction of a weekly mixed food and green waste service in 2013 was continuing to have a positive impact.
Trafford council said: “Waste collection is undertaken by The One Trafford Partnership – a contract between the council and Amey. A recent waste composition study commissioned by them has indicated that by weight, around one quarter of residual waste is food waste, despite offering free caddy liners, annual calendars and a weekly food waste service.
“In response the partnership are planning to deliver caddy liners to every property this autumn, and are working with the Greater Manchester Waste Disposal Authority to encourage greater participation through targeted door step campaigns.”
Elsewhere, councils which have in recent years been edging towards the 60% recycling mark also appear to have slipped back. Cheshire West & Chester recorded a provisional recycling rate of 57.7% (down 1.4% on 2014/15), and South Northamptonshire, while making it into the top ten, also plateaued at 59%.
Despite the decline in the figures, municipal waste contractor Biffa said it was “naturally delighted” that letsrecycle.com’s projections had placed four of its serviced council contracts in this year’s top ten: South Oxfordshire, Vale of White Horse, Stratford-on-Avon and Surrey Heath.
Pete Dickson, commercial director of Biffa Municipal, said: “It’s a matter of some pride that South Oxfordshire and Vale of White Horse have maintained their notable recycling performance and so retain their positions at the top of the predicted league table.
“It’s particularly satisfying that recycling rates appear to have broadly held up in the face of greater scrutiny of commingled materials, as required by the MRF Code of Practice.”
Rochford
And Rochford’s portfolio holder for the environment, councillor Dave Sperring, thanked Suez and residents for once again helping the district council’s recycling performance. The Essex-based council has consistently ranked within the top three collection authorities for the past seven years.
Cllr Sperring said: “We have a very simple three bin system, but it is really down to our residents that we have achieved such great recycling rates year-on-year, and I would like to thank them for their efforts. I would also like to thank our hard-working council officers, and Suez, for ensuring the system runs so smoothly and efficiently.”
Being cynical I would say drop in rates may well be down to the sampling that we have to do now. Before some rates were artificially high, especially when trying to keep a contract. Now we are having to do detailed sampling figures starting to look a lot different and showing a higher rate of rejected materials, which in turn would certainly effect recycling rates.
The problem may just be that recycling figures aren’t the be all and end all – and so they shouldn’t be.
If free garden waste collections were to be reinstated then you can be sure that recycling rates would go up. This would be better for the environment too with fewer concreted gardens and when the rain comes by the bucketful which it is bound to sometime we will have fewer flash floods with the grief and the costs that those will entail. Sometimes the columns of costs shouldn’t be looked at only on their own but in conjunction with others… and it doesn’t always look as if that happens. There are also the increased costs of collecting all the leaves which householders once added a fair part of to their green collection (and from which householders would have removed the tin cans and plastic bottles etc though obviously not all contamination).
The BRC information is exasperating when many Councils’ provide words of one syllable information – that should be for a check list – not for the full recycling list which should include how to present an item. For instance the best lists say yes to the bottle and then go on to say what to do with the lid. When you suddenly have no information you are left wondering and lost so in your frustration will leave the lid on one day and off the next. If it doesn’t matter say so. If it does says so. If all the collections can now deal with lids – then say so. We’re not so stupid that we don’t realise that prices and technology can change as that happens in the rest of our lives. So do contracts. Explain and take us with you. Patronise and try to manipulate and you get what you deserve – the cold shoulder.
Who do you think wants all the excessive cardboard that comes wrapped around online purchases? The public don’t because somebody ends up trying to flatten it for themselves or for others who can’t be bothered and to house it before collection (maybe two weeks or more) or squash it into a bin. The businesses don’t because so many people now have their purchases delivered to the office and then that becomes chargeable waste. We need action taken to stop the excessive packaging that we still see – or is it that it is increasing again – and which the stationery company was famously taken to court for in about 2007. A lot of that excessive packaging – compostable and easily recyclable as it may be now – is still ending up flytipped on the street. Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall also visited a company that he had been tipped off by the public were using excessive packaging. It wasn’t just the coffee cups with wishfully misleading information on them that he looked at – yet more fuss was made about that.