The district’s success has been revealed through research conducted by letsrecycle.com into the best performing councils in England. The study comes ahead of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs’ (Defra) official recycling figures for England, which will be published in November.
The provisional data indicates that South Oxfordshire achieved a combined dry recycling and composting rate of 65.71% in 2013/14 – above the 65.32% the collection authority achieved in 2012/13 but lower than its 67.90% in 2011/12.
The council operates a fortnightly collection service for commingled recycling and residual waste, as well as a weekly separate collections of food waste. Recyclables are collected by Biffa and sent to the firm’s materials recycling facility (MRF) in Edmonton, North London.
Speaking in May this year after renewing its contract with Biffa, Councillor David Dodds, cabinet member for recycling and waste in South Oxfordshire, said he was ‘delighted’ that their ‘successful’ working relationship could continue.
If validated, it could be the first time that the district council has claimed the top spot, after coming second every year since 2009.
Rogerson
Commenting on the findings, resource management minister Dan Rogerson said: “By sharing best practice we can build on people’s desire to recycle more and the tremendous progress we’ve already made over the last ten years.
“I applaud high performing local authorities for their success and the hard work they do to make recycling easier for residents.”
The announcement will come as a blow to Rochford district council, which looked set to retain first place with an overall provisional rate of 65.49%. Because of the narrow margin between the top two authorities, it remains to be seen whether any last minute data refinement would lead to a change of position.
[testimonial id = “14” align=”right”]
Historically a strong performer, Rochford operates a three-bin system for residual, garden and food waste delivered by SITA UK. The contractor provides weekly collections of garden and food waste, and an alternate weekly collection timetable for refuse and dry recycling.
Following a drop in its rate last year, the Essex local authority said it was considering incentives to boost the rate in 2014, and also confirmed it aimed to achieve an overall recycling rate of 70% by 2016.
Commenting on its provisional result for 2013/14, councillor Keith Gordon, portfolio holder for the environment, said: “It’s brilliant news to know how well our recycling scheme is performing.
“The beauty of our scheme is in its simplicity, we have a straightforward ‘three bin’ system for recyclables, non-recyclables, and food/garden waste and I think residents appreciate that. Without them buying into the scheme it simply wouldn’t work – so I’d like to thank our residents for all their recycling efforts.”
Other collection authorities have witnessed a more dramatic decline in their recycling rates, with some blaming the drop on the fact they are no longer allowed to compost street leaf sweepings.
In September 2013, the Environment Agency reaffirmed guidance ruling that the sweepings were ‘too contaminated’ to be used to produce quality compost, as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) present in the material are known to be carcinogenic.
Despite their performance, both South Oxfordshire and Vale of White Horse district councils have argued they are among the hardest hit by the decision, with one councillor confirming the ban had been ‘very hurtful’.
Surrey Heath
Meanwhile, Surrey Heath borough council, which last year occupied the fourth highest position in England with an overall rate of 63.77%, has seen its rate fall to around 58% – knocking the council out of the top ten.
Early indications suggest that the most rural areas of Surrey will feel the impact of the ruling, with Mole Valley district council also likely to see its rate drop from 56.68% to 54.03%.
A spokesman for Surrey Heath council said: “The impact of not being able to recycle leaves or street cleansing arisings has had a big impact on us. Had things not changed we would have been on a little over 65%.
“We have introduced WEEE and textile collections during the last year or so but unfortunately the tonnages from those areas are nowhere near the lost tonnages.”
While recycling in England does appear to be rising, the rate of increase has almost slowed to a standstill; no local authority has topped the record 68.7% score set by Vale of White Horse in 2011/12.
According to provisional data published by Defra earlier this month, local authorities achieved an overall rate of 44.2% over the 2013 calendar year, a rise of just 0.1% compared to the end of 2012.
LARAC
However, Local Authority Recycling Advisory Committee (LARAC) chair Andrew Bird was optimistic that England could reach its 50% statutory target by 2020.
Mr Bird said: “It’s encouraging that there are a number of authorities achieving above the 60% level despite the current kind of climate in England. This again shows that the 50% target is easily achievable with the right types of services.”
Meanwhile, 2013/14 has been a positive year for urban recycling, with Stockport metropolitan borough council due to retain its place as the best performing urban authority in England with 61.11%.
The local authority, which set up its own Teckal-exempt waste firm Solutions SK Ltd in 2004, operates a four-bin system with food and garden waste collected weekly and residual waste and dry recycling collected fortnightly.
Councillor Martin Candler, executive member for communities and sustainability, said: “It’s due to the commitment of Stockport residents and the Council that the borough once again has one of the best recycling rates in the country.
“We will continue to work with residents to further improve recycling rates and reduce the amount of waste being sent to landfill.”
South Northamptonshire
And, lower down the league table some councils have seen significant improvement. The switch to a commingled recycling system and the introduction of weekly food waste collections in South Northamptonshire has seen the council’s rate jump from 48.76% in 2012/13 to an estimated 56.70% in 2013/14.
Likewise, between 2012/13 and 2013/14 Trafford council saw its recycling rate rise by 10 percentage points to an estimated 57.50%. The council believes that a switch from weekly to fortnightly residual waste collections, as well as a change to weekly organic waste collections, is behind the increase.
Register for free to comment