The comment came as part as a best value inspection which looked at the council's public services. The inspectors praised the council and awarded the public services unit which deals with a wide range of services including recycling and refuse collection two stars saying that it was “good, with promising prospects for improvement”.
Caradon is a district in South East Cornwall which covers 256 square miles including five main towns of Callington, Liskeard, Looe, Saltash and Torpoint and about 80 villages and hamlets.
Over the last year there has been a steady increase in the amount of waste recycled and this year, (2001/02) the council will recycle about 11% of household waste.
The inspectors said that recent action on recycling, refuse collection and removal of fly tips has led to considerable improvements in the recycling service and it expects the recycling rate to continue to rise.
The inspectors concluded: “According to performance indicators, in 1999/2000 and 2000/01 the council ’s performance on recycling was poor. However, during this year (2001/02) they have made significant progress in increasing the proportion of household waste that is recycled. The reason for this increase is that the Council has started a range of schemes in partnership with other organisations.”
Central composting
The council's recycling service is made up of bring sites, a fortnightly kerbside collection in the five main towns in partnership with Cornwall Paper Company and a central composting service that uses garden waste and road sweepings to make compost. The Cornwall Community Volunteer Services also carries out a collection of bulky household waste for recycling and reuse. Cornwall County Council organises the district's bottle banks and for the purpose of meeting recycling targets, the recycled glass is credited to the county council. This represents just over 6.6% of all of the waste collected in the Caradon district.
The inspectors also praised the council because of the overall decline in the amount of waste that was collected last year. In 1999/2000 the council collected 29,158 tonnes of waste and in 2000/01 the total amount of refuse collected fell to 28,221 tonnes.
The report concluded: “This reduction of 937 tonnes is significant, as the national trend is that the amount of household refuse is rising by 3% each year. Figures show that the total amount of waste collected in Caradon has reduced every year since 1998/99, and the figures for the first six months of this year (2001/02) suggest that the trend will be maintained.”
Councillor Hugh Francis, Caradon’s cabinet member with the service delivery portfolio, said: “The work of our public services team touches the lives of everyone in the district, and we are very pleased to have been commended in this independent report. We want to continue improving our services to the people of Caradon and will be taking the inspectors’ suggestions for changes on board.”
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