Warwickshire given 750,000 prize for 20% recycling target

To reach its target, the county needed to recycle 53,800 tonnes of the 259,000 tonnes of household waste generated in 2003/04. The council actually recycled 56,403 tonnes, almost 22% of its waste.

The county's achievement in reaching the recycling target came in part because of a Christmas campaign in which Warwickshire urged residents to recycle so that the council would receive the 750,000 bonus. In an approach that would appear to have worked, the council told residents: “Go on – do your bit, and recycle it – and bring some extra funding into the County.”

Councillor Ken Browne, environment portfolio holder at Warwickshire, said: “This is a tremendous achievement, and we hope that people will continue to help us to reduce, re-use and recycle and protect the environment. The money gained from achieving our target will be used in a variety of ways to support the county council's services.”

Cllr Browne thanked residents and the district and borough councils for introducing new recycling schemes in 2003/04. These schemes have included:

• Dry recyclables and green waste collections for all properties in Nuneaton & Bedworth borough council.
• Recycling collections for 22,000 properties and green waste collections for 14,000 properties every other week in North Warwickshire.
• Recycling collections for 16,000 properties in Rugby.
• Newspaper collections for 52,000 properties and garden waste collections for 22,000 properties in Warwick.
• Recycling collections for all properties and garden waste collections for 15,800 properties in Stratford.

A publicity campaign run alongside these new recycling services included the use of television advertising. Warwickshire led a consortium of councils in the Midlands to share costs and benefits of the television campaign (see letsrecycle.com story).

Warwickshire also achieved a reduction in the waste generated of 1.5% – impressive since the UK average is for waste to grow by about 3%. The county achieved the waste reduction through various initiatives including a discounted home composter scheme, “real nappy” campaign and a free home chipping service for garden waste.