Lowest recycling council seeks credit for using EfW

The council with the lowest recycling rate in England has claimed it should get credit for sending 85% of its waste to an incinerator rather than landfill.

Ashford borough council in Kent came bottom of the league table for recycling, composting and reuse in England for 2010/11 according to figures released by Defra (see letsrecycle.com story).

But, in a statement issued this week, the council said it was making improvements to its service and also said it should receive credit for diverting waste from landfill to an energy-from-waste incinerator.

Deputy leader of Ashford borough council, Gerry Clarkson, said: These flawed figures have to be questioned as they do not take into account the fact that around 85% of the waste generated in Ashford is converted into reusable energy. It is not sent to landfill and yet we get no credit for this.

Ashford currently sends all of its residual waste to the Allington energy-from waste incinerator, which is owned by WRG, to be converted into energy.

Ashford recycled only 14% of its waste in 2010/11, over 50% behind top performing council Rochford in Essex who recorded a recycling rate of 66%. This is the second year that Ashford has remained at the bottom of the league table and its recycling rate dropped by almost two percentage points from 2009/10.

Previous to this in 2008/09 Ashford had a recycling rate of 21% which was drastically reduced when the council ceased to provide a collection for garden and food waste.

Service

The council said itwas working to increase its recycling rate to at least 40% by 2014/15. It is hoping to achieve this through the introduction of a new collection service in 2013 which will replace the current contract with SITA which expires March 31 of that year.

The new service will be part of the Mid Kent Joint Waste Project (MKJWP), a partnership between mid-Kent councils, including Maidstone and Swale borough councils, to deliver ‘cost-effective’ waste collection, processing and disposal services whilst increasing recycling rates.

Weekly food waste collection as well as a fortnightly collection of garden waste will be introduced as part of the MKJWP while collection of residual waste will be reduced to a fortnightly collection. Dry recyclables will continue to be collected fortnightly.

Cllr Clarkson said: The new waste management contract will allow us the opportunity to improve our recycling service to every household in the borough by including a wider range of materials as well as providing a weekly food waste collection which is what our community expressed in our biggest ever public consultation last year.

Service

Residents in Ashford are currently provided with a blue box for dry recyclables including glass, paper, cans and textiles however the council do not currently recycle plastics. The blue box is collected on a fortnightly basis with residual waste being collected weekly in a black refuse sack.

Ashford has 50,000 households however only two thirds of these have access to a blue kerbside recycling box. An expansion of this service in spring 2011 increased the number of households with recycling collections by 9,000 to a total of 37,000.