The London borough of Bexley came top of the London recycling league for the second year in the recently released 2002/3 figures, with a recycling and composting rate of 22%. Richard Eaton, head of street service, said: “We have very supportive members who go along with our plans and provide money to bring about expansion, and enthusiastic residents.”
He added that money was also crucial. “If you have got enthusiastic members who put money into recycling that enables you to pursue it to the fullest extent. Money is the only way we are going to meet our statutory targets for 2005/06,” he said.
- Click here for the recycling league table for London boroughs.
Bexley has 92,000 households, most of which have paper kerbside collections. There are also trial glass collections to 20,000 homes, dry recyclable collections to 3,000 and green waste collections to 4,200.
Despite this Mr Eaton said he did not expect the council to meets its high recycling target of 33% by 2003/4. But the council is currently finalising plans to use a Cleanaway in-vessel composting facility to treat collections of kitchen waste, with the help of 300,000 from the London Recycling Fund. By 2005/6, Mr Eaton said, Bexley should be back on track to meet its 2005/06 target of 36%.
Hillingdon
Hillingdon borough council's figures made the biggest leap this year, with a rise of 4.5% to 19.5% recycling and composting. Waste development officer Duncan Jones said: “Our success is down to the fact we have put a lot of money into recycling and we have a good team.” He said he expected the 2003/4 figure to reach 23% thanks to a new green waste kerbside collection rolled out in the past year, and borough-wide dry recyclable collections.
Mr Jones also praised local politicians. “For two to four years now, members have taken lots of good decisions and put lots of money into the waste division,” he added. “There's no rocket science here – we simply put a lot of money in, have a small, very tight team and go after heavy weight tonnages.”
Warning
Mr Jones added a warning: “We don’t give subsidies to real nappies, because we don't believe there's a real case for them, and we don't employ officers purely for minimisation schemes. We are very practically minded. A lot of authorities waste money on window dressing. March 2004 is two months away and London will fall woefully short (of its targets).”
Richmond-upon-Thames had the second highest recycling rate, 20.5%. Recycling and environment manager Sue Duckworth said the borough was highest for dry recycling, offered to all 60,000 non-high-rise properties, but Bexley had a much better composting collection. However, Richmond plans to increase publicity for its garden waste collections and to trial a kitchen waste collection in partnership with Hounslow, Brent and Ealing.
Limits
But Mr Jones complained that recycling efforts were given less weighting than achievements in other areas in the government's Best Value Performance assessment of local councils. “Because of the weight given to waste and recycling efforts in general in local councils assessment, it doesn't do a lot to drag up the borough's overall rating as an authority – and how can you have authorities rated good, or excellent, that have mediocre recycling?” he asked.
“We would like the government to look at how it grades services and give more weight to waste and recycling. We came out as a weak authority overall, but we are one of the best recycling authorities in London and given that it's harder to persuade members to give money because they don't get major recognition for it.”
Hackney
The London borough with the lowest recycling rate, at 2.6%, was Hackney. Spokeswoman Mary Anna Wright said the borough had unique barriers to recycling, such as large numbers of high-rise properties, different cultural and religious groups speaking more than 140 languages, and few gardens producing heavy green waste.
But she said kerbside collections to 51,000 properties began in January 2003, 5,000 homes had garden waste collections, and 250 of a total 500 mini-kerbside schemes had been installed on estates. She said these changes should show up in the 2003/4 figures. “Our recycling rate has gone up 6% in tonnage since last year – it's now more than 7%, and in January last year it was 1%.” She insisted that although Hackney was unlikely to meet its 10% target this year, it would meet its 18% target for 2004/5.
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