Councils are currently assembling their recycling figures for last year for auditing and submission to the government. The figures have particular importance this year as they determine whether the councils have reached their statutory targets for 2003/04.
Exclusive research carried out by letsrecycle.com shows that Lichfield district council, second best waste collection authority in England in 2002/03, has seen its rate increase from 42.6% to 46.2% for 2003/04.
”The secret of our success is that recycling has become the norm for our residents.“
– Ruth Plant, Lichfield DC
Ruth Plant, director of operational services at the council, told letsrecycle.com: “The secret of our success is that we have been doing recycling for the best part of ten years, so it has become the norm for our residents.”
The council carries out alternate weekly collections of residual waste and green waste as well as weekly collections of dry recyclables. All 39,000 households are offered two green boxes, one for collecting glass, cans and plastic and another for paper and card. The council also collects textiles.
Lichfield is one of a group of South Staffordshire authorities in the process of negotiating a joint recycling contract with preferred bidder R U Recycling, a subsidiary of E Harper (York).
In-vessel
Ms Plant said that one thing Lichfield doesn't do yet is collect food waste, but if it opted for an in-vessel composting system the council could do this in the future. She said that if a bid for WRAP funding comes off, the council will be able to carry out targeting auditing to improve recycling capture rates in low-performing areas of the district.
The Lichfield director of operations added that cross-party support from the politicians was also important in achieving the high results.
Other top WCAs in England include Forest Heath, which has gone up from 28.4 to about 32% in 2003/04, St Edmundsbury which has done well to increase from 30% to just over 35%, and East Hampshire, which believes it has broken through the 30% mark after reaching 25% in 2002/03.
However, many high performing collection authorities have found it difficult to improve on rates over 20%, with some of the top performing councils of 2002/03 either remaining at the same rate in 2003/04 or in some cases slipping downwards.
Daventry
Daventry came top out of the waste collection authorities in 2002/03, with a combined recycling and composting rate of 44.3%. This year however, Daventry believes its figure has dropped to 41.6%.
The council has traditionally achieved much of its high rate through strong green waste collections, but a council spokeswoman explained that in 2003/04 a dry summer affected the amount of green waste the council picked up.
Other councils that have struggled to improve on their 2002/03 performance include Melton, which does not believe it is much better than last year's 31.3%, Chiltern which has remained on 27% and Uttlesford, which slipped from 24% to 20%.
Eastleigh
Eastleigh borough council in Hampshire had the strongest recycling rate among English WCAs for purely dry recyclables in 2002/03, its 27.9% rate included no green waste collections.
For 2003/04, Eastleigh's recycling officer Martin Cole told letsrecycle.com that their initial calculations showed that rate for dry recyclables had crept up to 28.8%, while new green waste collections had pushed the overall rate up to 30.9%
Like a number of the higher performing councils, Mr Cole said Eastleigh had been unable to reach its tough statutory target for 2003/04 of 33%.
He said: “I'm not surprised we didn't hit 33% – we were set the toughest recycling target by the government. But we have in place the schemes to quickly reach 40%, our next target.”
Eastleigh is expanding its green waste collections and is also hoping to use Defra funding to introduce mixed glass kerbside collections.
Green waste
Green waste collections seem to be the way forward for many councils in England to increase their recycling rates this year. Some council officers believe the government should have left green waste out of the recycling obligations placed on local authorities.
One local authority officer told letsrecycle.com that it was a shame that councils are being forced to invest in green waste collections.
He said: “It's a shame we've got to be chasing green waste to reach our targets – it means collecting a waste that we are not legally obliged to collect.”
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