Residents in South Oxfordshire are being praised for their stunning efforts of recycling and composting 70 per cent of household rubbish – thought to be the best figures in England. The first full year of the area’s new rubbish collection and recycling service is estimated to have saved taxpayers around £355,000 as well as racked up £850,000 in recycling credits.
The scheme was highly commended at the recent local authority’s Municipal Journal Awards, where it was revealed that from June 2009 to June 2010, South Oxfordshire’s contractor Verdant collected 6,115 tonnes of food waste, 18,531 tonnes of dry recycling and 7,434 tonnes of garden waste. When added to the amount in the district’s recycling banks, this bought total composting figures to a whopping 32,621 tonnes.
Only 11,739 tonnes of waste went to landfill during the same year, bringing the area’s overall recycling rate to 73 per cent. An impressive 68 per cent is still achieved even when an average of five per cent contamination rejection is factored in.
In the previous year (from 2008 to 2009), the council produced 27,964 tonnes of waste and only recycled 21,753 tonnes, bringing the overall composting and recycling rate to just 44 per cent. Dry recycling collected from households have increased by about 24 per cent under the new service and total composting and recycling is up by 48 per cent. Waste going to landfill is also down 60 per cent.
A prestigious award for the best direct mail campaign was given to the council, who encouraged local residents to support the scheme and informed them of collection times. The council was also entered in the MJ Awards 2010 for the Environmental Innovation Achievement of the Year category.
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