Provisional figures compiled by letsrecycle.com for the 2021/22 financial year suggest the Hertfordshire-based authority will move ahead of last year’s first and second placed authorities, St Albans and South Oxfordshire.
Three Rivers’ 63.5% recycling, reuse and composting rate represents a 0.9% rise in the Hertfordshire-based authority’s figure from the previous year. If confirmed by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), Three Rivers will be one of just three councils in last year’s top 10 to record an increase.
Official Defra figures are not due to be released until “February or March” (see letsrecycle.com story).
The Top 10 table below is using statistics collated by letsrecycle.com and is subject to verification. Councils outside the top 10 who posted a large rise could also still win.
Three Rivers
Three Rivers is a Lib-Dem controlled authority and serves around 90,000 residents. It runs an in-house waste collection team. This was noted in a Labour Party report ahead of the 2019 election, which highlighted the authority as a successful example of in-house collections (see letsrecycle.com story).
The council has long been one of the best performing councils, having been in the top seven for each of the last 12 years.
Average
On average, the top 10 councils in 2020/21 recorded a 0.9% fall in their recycling rates in 2021/22. Many authorities noted that services were severely disrupted during this time, caused by a shortage of drivers and general staffing issues.
Other councils noted that general waste volumes were also down from their Covid peaks, as more people returned to offices rather than working from home.
It is difficult to predict the impact on the overall national recycling rate as some of the larger authorities, such as Sheffield provisionally posted a rise, from 32.2% to 33.7%.
(Historic league tables for England can be seen on letsrecycle.com HERE.)
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