Colchester third best in England for improving recycling and rubbish rates

Date issued: 14 January 2019

Statistics recently released by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) identify Colchester Borough Council as the local authority in England with the third largest increase in household recycling rates in 2017-18.

During that year, Colchester achieved a recycling rate of 55%, a 9% increase from the previous year and 10% above the official recycling rate for England in 2017.

In June 2017, the Council made changes to its waste collections across the borough in order to boost recycling rates and reduce the amount of rubbish sent to landfill. The changes included limiting the borough's households to three black bags a fortnight or one black wheelie bin for non-recyclable rubbish, with collections switching from a weekly to a two-weekly cycle. Food waste collections have remained weekly.

Colchester’s rankings in DEFRA’s 2017-18 rubbish and recycling figures clearly demonstrates how successful these changes have been in reducing the amount of general rubbish each household puts out and encouraging residents to recycle more.

Other achievements in DEFRA’s annual Local Authority Waste Statistics 2017-18, highlight Colchester Borough Council as the:

• Best performer in the Eastern region for reducing the amount of rubbish per person.
• Second best performer in England for reducing the amount of rubbish generated per person
• Fifth best in England for residual waste per household, having risen from 58^th place in 2016- 17
• Ninth in the Eastern Region and 29^th in England for the percentage of household waste recycled, up 70 places in the table compared to 2016-2017
• In the top 15 local authorities with the lowest household waste per head that year.

Councillor Martin Goss, Portfolio Holder for Waste, Environment and Transportation, said: “I’m incredibly pleased and proud of residents and staff for all their hard work increasing recycling in the borough and reducing the rubbish that’s sent to landfill. Since the collection changes were introduced last year, the borough’s recycling rates are going from strength to strength.

“There is still always more we can do and we’re continuously looking for ways to increase recycling and reduce waste and in recent months, we’ve introduced plastic recycling facilities to over 7,000 flats.”

Introducing new recycling facilities and working to improve recycling rates supports the Council’s Better Colchester campaign which aims to make Colchester a better place to live, work and visit.

ENDS