A kerbside recycling collection scheme in Torbay which was heavily criticised on its introduction in August 2010 has helped the unitary council to increase its recycling rate by 9% over the past year.
The weekly source-separated kerbside collection scheme was rolled out to 60,000 households by the council under a joint venture with services company May Gurney known as Tor2. It replaced an existing fortnightly commingled service.
At the time, the service faced a raft of criticism from local residents, in the local media and was also slated by local politicians (see letsrecycle.com story).
However, Tor2 this week said Torbay council had reached a 45% household waste recycling and composting rate for 2010/11. This represents a marked increase from the 36% achieved over the course of the 2009/10 financial year.
In particular, Tor2 stressed that it the council had only achieved a 3% improvement in recycling rates before the new service was fully rolled out. The increase was accompanied by 4.657 tonne drop in the amount of household waste sent to landfill over 2010/11.
Cllr David Thomas, Torbay’s deputy mayor, said: This is great news. We were confident when we set up the TOR2 joint venture company with May Gurney that changing to a much improved refuse and recycling system would result in higher recycling rates, and this has proved to be the case.
The success was also flagged up in May Gurneys full-year financial results, which were published earlier this week (June 1).
In the results, the company said: Since the service introduction in September, there has been a 44% increase in recycling rates. It also highlighted the potential for the deal to deliver 1.4 million in cost savings for Torbay council over the lifetime of the contract.
Performance
The councils said the improvement was encouraging because it kept it on course to achieve a 50% recycling and composting rate by 2012. In June 2011, Torbay intends to extend the service to enable more plastics to be collected at the kerbside.
Cllr Thomas acknowledged the disruption caused by the launch of the service, but said: We are extremely pleased that it is going so well. We are grateful to householders for playing their part by sorting their waste.
Meanwhile, Alistair Campbell, director of Tor2, praised Torbay residents efforts to embrace the service.
He said: We have also been carrying out significant improvements to our household waste and recycling centre at Yalberton.
“These improvements include better access and signage, staff in attendance to welcome and advise visitors, and facilities for additional recyclable materials.”
Register for free to comment