Research conducted into the best performing collection authorities in England for 2014/15 found that South Oxfordshire district council has once again come out top – with a provisional recycling rate of 67.32%.
The council is closely followed by neighbouring authority Vale of White Horse district council, which has provisionally achieved a rate of 65.57%.
Rochford district council, which narrowly lost out to South Oxfordshire in the 2013/14, looks set to come third this year with a rate of 65.22%.
The recycling figures includes composting and reuse.
Letsrecycle.com’s research comes ahead of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs’ (Defra) official recycling figures for England, which will be published in November.
‘Progress’
Commenting on the provisional figures, recycling minister Rory Stewart said: “We have made huge progress in reducing waste. This reflects both a lot of hard work by local authorities and a general desire from all of us, to recycle more. These councils deserve real congratulations for maintaining and in some cases even improving their recycling performance.”
Municipal collections in both South Oxfordshire and Vale are jointly operated by Biffa. If validated, South Oxfordshire council’s recycling will show a 1.6% rise on its 2013/14 performance which was 65.71%.
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The councils currently operate weekly separate food waste collections, bi-weekly dry recycling and refuse, and green waste also every two weeks. From this month, South Oxfordshire will collect textiles and small WEEE from households and Vale will follow in November.
Communication
According to Brian Ashby, Biffa Municipal’s regional manager at South Oxfordshire, the increase has been achieved by a communication campaign to recycle food waste that ends up in residents’ residual waste bins. See letsrecycle.com’s latest video report from South Oxfordshire here.
Councillor Tony Harbour, cabinet member for waste at South Oxfordshire district council, said: “It’s fantastic news that both of our councils are provisionally in first and second place this year. It’s an outstanding achievement and we’re really grateful for all of our residents’ hard work and look forward to their ongoing support as we prepare to launch our new recycling schemes starting later this year.”
Councillor Elaine Ware, cabinet member for waste at Vale of White Horse District Council, added: “I think a key to our success is the simplicity of our collection and recycling system, and making sure that we keep communicating with residents at all times to keep them updated and aware of what’s going on with their recycling. It wouldn’t be possible without their hard work though, and we don’t doubt that they’ll keep it up over the next year and keep our impressive track record.”
Sweepings
At a glance, many of the top performing councils in 2014/15 have retained consistently high composting and dry recycling rates from previous years. However, there is notable growth in the number of authorities to have achieved an overall rate of 60% or over.
Failure to count street leaf sweepings towards composting continues to hinder recycling rates for some local authorities, particularly in rural areas. It is understood that a number of councils are hoping to resume recycling the material following Surrey county council’s research into health risks (see letsrecycle.com story).
Trafford looks set to become the biggest success story of the year, joining Stockport as one of just two metropolitan authorities in the top ten. Since 2012/13, Trafford has jumped from 47% to a provisional 62% recycling rate – a 15% rise in just two years.
Commenting on the figures, councillor John Reilly, Trafford’s executive member for environment and operations, has praised householders’ efforts to recycle as well as council led initiatives to boost the Greater Manchester borough’s rate.
Food
He said: “Since the introduction of the new recycling collections for food and garden waste, we have seen further increases in the amount of recyclable items we are able to remove from going to landfill. This is thanks to the enthusiasm and determination of all our residents to take a minute to sort their personal household’s waste into the relevant bins ready for their kerbside collection.
“While it is thanks to them that we are one of the country’s highest performing councils in relation to recycling, we will not rest on our laurels. Through education and advice and environmental initiatives which highlight the importance of us all recycling, we aim to see continual increase in our recycling rates.”
Mr Reilly added that waste collections in the area have recently been handed over to Amey under the ‘One Trafford’ Partnership.
Joe Stafford, Amey’s account director for Trafford, added the firm was committed to “drive up” recycling rates.
Urban
However, the general lack of cities in the league table – and the prevalence of leafy districts with high composting rates – is likely to reinforce concerns among some in the sector that not enough is being done to promote effective dry recycling collections.
Nevertheless, the work by local authorities to increase their recycling rates won praise from Lee Marshall, chief executive officer of the Local Authority Recycling Advisory Committee. He told letsrecycle.com: “I think it shows that we are still trying to get to 50% recycling by 2020 despite the financial constraints that they are operating with. And, it shows the demographic maybe of more significance than the actual collection method.”
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