And, according to Oxford city council, which released preliminary figures for its recycling performance for 2016/17 this week, the amount of residual waste discarded has reduced by over 1,700 tonnes or 8%.
In a statement on its website, the local authority said the fall in the figure for household waste suggests that residents are cutting down on wastage as well as increasing recycling.
‘Significant improvement’
The council said: “In the financial year up to last April, on average, each household in the city threw away 382.86 kg of rubbish. This is down from the previous financial year’s 409.47 kg. That’s a significant improvement amounting to a reduction of 6.5 per cent for each household.”
The latest overall recycling figure is reported at 49.89%. The council said this an increase of 2.99% on the previous 46.90% reported by the council.
Within that, the total of recycled materials, collected from Oxford’s blue bins, food caddies and brown bins was 21,791.94 tonnes. This is an increase, up 1,092.77 tonnes or 5% on last year.
When contacted by letsrecycle.com, a spokesperson for Oxford city council said the Blue Bin Recycling League – a government grant funded rewards scheme – had allowed the authority to ‘ramp up’ its education work and promotional activities, with 14 school visits and over 100 recycling roadshows. (see letsrecycle.com story)
Food waste
“A big thank you to everyone for reducing, reusing and recycling. It saves taxpayers’ money, it’s is good for the environment and you can win prizes through the Blue Bin Recycling League.”
John Tanner
Oxford city council
In terms of food waste, the spokesperson said the council had worked on rolling out food recycling to all flats in Oxford. And, it had been working in partnership with the county council and organic waste firm Agrivert on enabling plastic liners in food recycling.
Residual collected from residents is sent to Viridor’s Ardley ERF, recycling to the company’s Crayford MRF, food waste to Agrivert’s Cassington AD and garden waste to the Ardley IVC facility. The council said it had also arranged monthly resident tours to the AD and ERF facilities.
Commenting on the preliminary results, the city council’s board member for a clean and green Oxford, Cllr John Tanner, said: “Oxford residents are top-notch recyclers and waste-reducers. A big thank you to everyone for reducing, reusing and recycling. It saves taxpayers’ money, it’s is good for the environment and you can win prizes through the Blue Bin Recycling League.”
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