Surrey to ‘use a range of tactics’ in recycling campaign

The Recycling in Surrey 2021-22 report details that the county council recorded a 54.5% recycling rate in 2021/22, ranking it 37th in the country and third among waste disposal authorities. 

Other positives include a 71.2% reduction in contamination, with 241 tonnes of material rejected. The report also said that 81.7% of recycling was recycled or composted in the UK. 

Waste levels are still up from before the pandemic, as more people work from home. Each resident produced an average of 431.7kg of recycling and rubbish, up from 424kg in 2019/20.  

However, the report did detail that landfill rates in the region rose during this time from around 5% in 2020/21 to 15% in 2021/22. Surrey reasoned that the increase was “because one of the main energy from waste facilities that Surrey sends its rubbish to had a long, unplanned shutdown for technical reasons. This meant there was no other option but to send it to landfill.” 

Surrey has a long-standing waste disposal deal with Suez, first signed in 1999, which saw the Surrey Eco Park gasifier built. The delayed gasifier facility became operational in 2022, many years behind schedule. The pair had previously clashed over the facility, with legal proceedings taking place in 2021 (see letsrecycle.com story). 

Campaign 

On the back of the findings, the campaign will look to build on the success of contamination reduction by encouraging residents to reduce waste volumes.  

The campaign will use a range of tactics and channels to encourage residents to recycle more to help protect the environment and save their local council money, as it costs them less to recycle material than it does to dispose of it as rubbish. 

SEP chair, councillor Marisa Heath, said: “With this new campaign, we want to highlight to residents the value of recycling as much as possible.  

“The Recycling in Surrey report shows that Surrey is performing well when it comes to recycling. But we know that lots of material that can be recycled is going into rubbish bins and we want to change that. We’re hopeful that Surrey residents will be encouraged by the findings of the report and will start filling their recycling bins to help us achieve ever greater performance.” 

Projects due to be delivered include: 

• Introducing new food waste collection services at flats and carrying out trials to help improve use of existing services 

• A countywide rollout of a waste reduction incentive scheme, Rethink Waste, which was successfully trialled in one borough in 2022-23 
• Delivering communications to households to encourage regular use of food waste collection services 
• The rollout of various measures to reduce instances of communal recycling loads being rejected for recycling due to contamination

Aims 

This new campaign aims to reduce the number of recyclable materials been thrown into black general waste bins. It launches today (7 June) and will focus on improving the recyclability of four key items: paper, plastic, metal and glass.  

Other priorities include reducing residual waste, increasing participation in food waste recycling, increasing the quality and quantity of dry mixed recycling, educating and encouraging residents to reduce, reuse and recycle quality material.  

The campaign will look to highlight the benefits of recycling both for the environment and for local councils’ finances.  

This new campaign is an extension of the partnership’s 2022 campaign which aimed to reduce food waste and importance of food waste reduction and recycling to help tackle climate change (see letsrecycle.com story).