The council, which was tipped to come top in letsrecycle.com’s exclusive survey earlier this year, achieved an overall recycling, composting and reuse rate of 67.3%.
It is the second consecutive year that the collection authority has come out on top, having previously recorded a 65.71% overall recycling rate in 2013/14.
As predicted, neighbouring Vale of White Horse and Essex-based Rochford district council finished second and third with 65.6% and 65.2% respectively.
The 2014/15 table, though similar in make up to previous years, is notable for being the first time all collection councils included in the top ten have achieved an overall recycling rate of 60% or more.
Trafford
The Defra statistics also confirm the boost in performance by Trafford council in Greater Manchester – which has pipped neighbouring Stockport as the top performing urban council in the country with 61.9%. In September, the council credited its success to the roll out of new food waste and green waste collections (see letsrecycle.com story).
Other surprises include Surrey Heath, which despite failing to make the top ten in 2013/14, has made a comeback with 63.3% of waste recycled, reused or composted from April 2014 to March 2015.
The positive result would seem to indicate rural authorities’ ability to find alternative recycling tonnage to street leaf sweepings, which at present cannot be counted towards local authority statistics. A number of regions, including Surrey, are still hoping to overturn the Environment Agency decision (see letsrecycle.com story).
South Oxfordshire was among those to attribute the dip in its recycling to the leaf sweepings last year, a problem that collection contractor Biffa told letsrecycle.com it had rectified by boosting its organic waste tonnage (see letsrecycle.com story).
Climbers
The high climbers of 2014/15 include Ashford borough council in Kent. Once dubbed the ‘worst recycler in England’ the borough’s recycling rate shot up from 12-42% in 2013/14 – and has again risen to 55% in 2014/15.
Recycling in East Cambridgeshire also shot up to 56.6% – an 11% increase on the previous year. And, in Bury, Greater Manchester the rate rose to 46.6% – ahead of the 42.96% recorded in 2013/14 – as it continued to feel the impact of its switch to three weekly waste collections.
England
On a larger scale, total household waste across all households in England stood at 22 million tonnes in 2014/15, of which just under 10 million tonnes was either sent for dry recycling or composting.
In total, England’s recycling rate increased to 44.7% – a 0.2% boost on the previous year. The amount of total residual waste also rose by just under 100,000 tonnes over the same period.
A Defra spokesman said: “These latest figures show the amount of waste going to landfill fell 20% last year, and the waste from households recycling rate was up on last year. This reflects hard work by local authorities and a desire from people to recycle more.
“We remain committed to building on this success and recycling 50% of our household waste by 2020 and will continue to support local authorities’ and WRAP’s efforts to promote recycling.”
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