This result was revealed in an Audit Commission inspection report on the council's waste services. The Commission rated the service as a 'good' two star service that has 'promising' prospects for improvement.
The report also commended Sheffield's waste strategy, published last year, for the “clear and challenging” targets it sets. The report also revealed that in addition to the reduction in household waste, Sheffield's unaudited waste tonnages for 2003/04 shows it has met its government recycling target of 10%. Sheffield's waste services are operated by a subsidiary of Onyx UK under a 30-year contract.
“Waste services have clear challenging aims focused on improving service delivery. The council is working with others to improve areas that relate to council priorities and national targets,” said the Commission.
David Bird, acting head of waste management at the council, said that the reduction in household waste in 2003/04 was due to a number of initiatives including a waste minimisation and waste awareness campaign called Let's Sort It Sheffield.
He added that changes to the way the city and its contractor handle trade waste has also had a big affect by increasing the accuracy of waste collection data.
“We have introduced height barriers to our recycling centres to restrict trade waste,” Mr Bird said. “We also specified in our contract that we wanted to separate out our trade waste by December 2002. So in 2003 we really saw the effects of a separate trade waste service from the domestic and got a more thorough picture of waste in the city.”
Other initiatives include a promotion on compost bins and the introduction of a charge on bulky waste collections.
Recommendations
But in the Audit Commission report, Sheffield's waste services were criticised for not being able to judge the effects of specific initiatives on reducing household waste.
Mr Bird said: “We have really got to sit down with our partners at Onyx and work out a way to find out which of these initiatives is the real one which is affecting the waste.”
The city council was also recommended to increase its spread of bring banks and seek to engage the public in waste management decisions. The council responded saying that it has already taken measures to follow the report's recommendations.
Green waste
One scheme the council is about to trial is a green waste collection in the south east of Sheffield. The project has received a 1.5 million grant from Defra to collect garden waste from 45,000 properties.
Bins and calendars are being delivered to the properties during June and July with collections due to start in September 2004.
Judith Turner, director of operations, collection and recycling at Onyx, said: “We hope that residents will take advantage of this green waste collection trial scheme in order to further reduce the waste in the domestic wheeled bin.”
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