Warwickshire claims waste service efficiency crown

But, the county has recognised the need to focus on waste minimisation to reduce the amount of waste generated in Warwickshire.

” The next thing we need to work on is to bring down the amount of household rubbish per head that we produce as a county.“
– Cllr Martin Healey, Warwickshire CC
The county council said it spent 17.55 per head on waste disposal and recycling in 2003/04, putting it at the top of the efficiency table for cost per head of the population. It said the average for English counties was 23.95 per head, while the most expensive was 33.96 per head.

Overall, the county spent 9.12 million to handle the 269,000 tonnes of waste produced by Warwickshire householders. However, with each resident producing on average 519kg of waste, the county council did less well compared to other counties on waste production levels.

As a result, Warwickshire said it must concentrate efforts on encouraging householders to re-use and reduce their waste.

Encouraging
County councillor Martin Heatley, who holds the environmental services portfolio for Warwickshire, said: “These latest figures are very encouraging. The next thing we need to work on is to bring down the amount of household rubbish per head that we produce as a county. It is disappointing to see that Warwickshire comes only 13th out of the 26 shire counties in this regard.

“We need to keep finding ways of encouraging people to re-use and reduce their waste,” Cllr Heatley added.

The county is already running anti-junk mail campaigns (see letsrecycle.com story) and re-usable nappy campaigns and is promoting community re-use groups to help divert items like old furniture from landfill.