EXCLUSIVE: South Oxfordshire tops recycling table with 70%

The 70% figure has been recorded in the independent annual survey carried out by letsrecycle.com of the top-performing councils in England last financial year (2010/11). This found that the councils provisional reuse, recycling and composting rate was five percentage points higher (70.56%) than its nearest rival, Rochford (65.46%).

The top council survey is carried out each year and comes ahead of the official league table generated by Defras waste statistics bureau WasteDataFlow which is expected to be published in a few months time. And, the data can be subject to change. WasteDataFlow has not commented on the letsrecycle.com survey.

In third place for 2010/11 was Surrey Heath borough council at 64.73%, with an extraordinary 52.68% dry recycling rate, and Bournemouth borough council at 63.9%, which also achieved an impressive 41.81% dry recycling rate.

Bournemouth stood out from the other local authorities because it was one of the only top-performers not to have introduced alternate-weekly collections of residual waste and recycling alongside weekly food waste collections hailed by many as the only formula for success.

Instead, it achieved a high dry recycling rate by sending its residual waste to New Earth Solutions MBT (mechanical biological treatment) facility near Poole, which breaks down the waste and uses mechanical means to separate out dry reyclables.

Service

In South Oxfordshire, which is largely rural with a population of 129,000 and includes the towns of Henley-on-Thames and Didcot, the councils contractor Verdant (now Biffa) introduced an alternate-weekly collection service in June 2009. This sees commingled recycling collected one week in a 240 litre green wheeled bins and residual waste collected the next in 180 litre wheeled bins. Food waste is also collected weekly using 23 litre bins and 7 litre internal caddies.

The range of collectable recyclables was extended to include glass, food and drinks cartons, aerosols and foil for the first time. Software was also used and microchips in wheeled bins to help answer residents queries and service complaints. Missed bins are now running at a very low 25 per 100,000 collections per week.

The contract is delivered by Verdant under a joint arrangement with neighbouring Vale of White Horse council which is now understood to be achieving an even higher recycling rate than South Oxfordshire.

Cllr David Dodds, cabinet member responsible for waste services in South Oxfordshire, has said: “We are so proud of the way this service is working in South Oxfordshire and the consistently high recycling rate that is being achieved. It is a real success story for all involved, from our residents for their commitment to recycling to the hard work of our contractors and council staff.”

South Oxfordshires provisional 70% recycling and composting rate was higher than the 66.29% inputted into WasteDataFlow for the first three quarters of the year. This is understood to be because the rejection rates for the MRFs the council sends its recyclables to Biffas MRFs at Aldridge and Edmonton – were revised down to 4.9% and also because the council had found some new end markets for lower-grade waste paper.

South Oxfordshires success comes after the local authority won the most improved recycling rate award at the LARAC 2010 awards (see letsrecycle.com story).

Rochford

In Rochford in Essex, the local authority operates a three bin system one for residual waste, one for garden and kitchen waste and one for dry recyclables including glass, tins and cans, plastic, newspapers and magazines and cardboard. The bin for green and food waste is collected weekly by its contractor SITA UK, while the other two are collected on alternate weeks.

The council last year attracted the praise of communities secretary of state Eric Pickles, who said he was quite impressed by the scheme (see letsrecycle.com story) – despite being generally critical of councils who collect residual waste fortnightly.

Rochford district council’s portfolio holder for the environment, councillor Mike Steptoe, said: “For a small local authority such as Rochford to achieve such huge recycling figures is incredible. We are so proud of the hard work residents, officers and our contractors, SITA UK have put in to make the scheme a success since it launched in 2008. Without their hard work this would not have been achieved.

“Rochford’s recycling team also seek to continuously innovate and work with our residents to try and raise our recycling figures even further. For example this year we have nearly completed the roll out of the scheme to flats across the district and we have several other projects in the pipeline that we hope will continue the incredible success story that has seen our rates surge from 17 per cent in 2007 to over 65 per cent in 2011.”

Surrey Heath

The two big risers in the this years league table are Surrey Heath and Bournemouth borough councils, which have risen from 36th and 38th position respectively in 2009/10 to provisionally third and fourth. The bulk of both councils achievement was seen in their dry recycling rate.

Verity Parker, from the recycling team at Surrey Heath borough council, said that the performance was down to the residents who really embraced the significant change of service we had in September 2009.

The waste collection service at the council went from a weekly, backdoor black sack collection with a network of bring sites and limited kerbside recycling to a wheeled bin service whereby recycling and refuse is collected on alternate weeks, alongside weekly food waste collections.

Roary (Recycling, Organics And Refuse), our recycling mascot, has also be a valuable member of the team… assisting us with road shows, carnivals, school visits and other promotional work on the lead up to the launch, Ms Parker said.

Staffordshire Moorlands

In fifth and sixth place respectively in the provisional league table meanwhile are Cotswold district council (60.41%) and Staffordshire Moorlands district council (60.23%). The latter has been the top performer for recycling and composting in England for the past two years (see letsrecycle.com story), but waste collection manager Nicola Kemp told letsrecycle.com that its recycling rate had gone slightly down compared to 2009/10 because of the cold weather.

She said: We had some damage caused by the bad weather in February to one of the buildings we use for organic waste and as a result street sweepings that have previously been composted were disposed of instead.

Indicators

As of April 2011, the national indicators including NI 192 which records how much household waste councils send for reuse, recycling or composting came to an end. This means that councils now have no annual targets for waste reduction, recycling and landfill diversion.

However, councils still need to report to WasteDataFlow for the Landfill Allowance Trading Scheme and to enable reporting against targets under the revised European Waste Framework Directive.