Lincolnshire invests in turning around poor recycling

In November 2002, the Audit Commission slammed the authority for the “long-term neglect of its waste management service”. It gave the council no stars and said it had poor prospects of improvement.

But the council has now appointed its first dedicated recycling officer, Kenton Vigus, who was previously waste and recycling officer at neighbouring unitary authority Rutland county council.

Staff
Mr Vigus said the number of staff in the recycling department had gone up from four to 15 in the last six months. “I have been here two months and we have been recruiting a lot of new staff. For example, we'll have an education campaigns officer and a strategy team. This will kick things off in a big way,” he said.

Mr Vigus admitted Lincolnshire is still “right at the beginning”, with a recycling rate of about 12%, and a target of 20% by the end of 2003. But he said the county's seven districts – Boston, East and West Lindsey, Lincoln, South Holland and North and South Kesteven – had been starting up kerbside recycling schemes.

“Hopefully this year there will be a marked difference,” he said. “A good example is Boston borough council, which has gone from 60 to 400 tonnes a month, and the other districts are following suit.”

Plan
The main priorities for the new recycling team are to foster closer links with the waste collection authorities and improve the standard of CA sites.

“Our household waste and recycling sites are in a pretty terrible state at the moment,” Mr Vigus said. “Money will be made available for updating those sites and maybe even building some new ones – but we have no extra money from DEFRA to do this, so far.”

Mr Vigus said at this stage he is looking to develop close relations with Lincolnshire district councils, and that an integrated waste management contract could be put out to tender in 2006.

When the waste disposal contract, currently held by WRG, comes up for tender in April 2004, it may be temporarily extended to give breathing space. But Mr Vigus stressed any future contract would incentivise recycling by the contractor.