Talking to letsrecycle.com, Councillor Alan White, portfolio holder for operational services at Lichfield council said that if it wanted to become the first English council to break the 50% barrier it would need more than just high recycling participation among residents.
”Once you have high participation rates, any additional residents signing up will make only a small amount of difference.“
– Cllr Alan White, Lichfield DC
Cllr White's comments came after the release of the latest recycling rates for English councils, (see letsrecycle.com story), in which Lichfield overtook Daventry at the top of the table with a recycling rate of 46%.
Cllr White said: “Once you have high participation rates, any additional residents signing up will make only a small amount of difference. If we want to achieve a high recycling rate new technology will be needed to achieve this, and I believe that goes for anywhere in the UK.”
Residents
Although he believes that new technology is the way forward for councils in the England, Cllr White said that Lichfield would still be looking to make sure that those people who are not using the scheme to its fullest were given every opportunity to recycle.
He said: “We have a WRAP grant to help us educate the areas that have low participation rates. We now have a scheme in place which we are happy with and that works, but we still need everyone on board.”
A recent on-street survey taken in Lichfield discovered that over 96% of Lichfield residents saw recycling as an important factor and 62% of the residents stated this as their main reason for recycling. Out of those who regularly recycle would like to recycle more.
The letsrecycle.com top 15(below) shows the best combined recycling and composting performances for each type of English local authority in 2003/04.
| Lichfield | 46 | Dorset | 29 | Isle of Wight | 35 | |
| Daventry | 42 | Cambridgeshire | 29 | Bath & North East Somerset | 29 | |
| East Hampshire | 36 | Hampshire | 27 | Peterborough | 27 | |
| St Edmundsbury | 35 | Somerset | 27 | Wokingham | 26 | |
| Forest Heath | 33 | Devon | 27 | Sutton LB | 25 | |
| Melton | 31 | Buckinghamshire | 26 | Milton Keynes | 24 | |
| Eastleigh | 31 | Lancashire | 26 | Hillingdon LB | 24 | |
| Canterbury | 30 | Suffolk | 26 | Windsor & Maidenhead | 23 | |
| Horsham | 30 | Leicestershire | 26 | Bournemouth | 23 | |
| Wealden | 30 | Norfolk | 26 | Richmond-upon-Thames LB | 22 | |
| Staffordshire Moorlands | 30 | Essex | 25 | Torbay | 21 | |
| Fylde | 30 | Oxfordshire | 24 | Bexley LB | 21 | |
| South Cambridgeshire | 28 | Kent | 23 | Bromley LB | 20 | |
| Breckland | 28 | Shropshire | 23 | North East Lincolnshire | 20 | |
| Forest of Dean | 27 | Nottinghamshire | 23 | North Lincolnshire | 20 | |
Data taken from OPDM statistics
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