Witney News - West Oxfordshire’s recycling rate almost doubles

West Oxfordshire’s recycling rate almost doubles

West Oxfordshire has almost doubled its recycling rate over the last six months, with over 66% of the District’s waste now being recycled.

Recycling has increased significantly month-on-month since the District Council introduced a new waste and recycling service at the end of November 2010, with latest whole-month figures for April showing that 66% of waste was diverted from landfill.

West Oxfordshire’s recycling rate stood at 34% before the service was launched.

Cllr David Harvey, West Oxfordshire District Council’s Cabinet Member for Environment, said: “The Council had hoped that the previous 34% recycling rate would be doubled within the first year of the new service. We knew that this was an ambitious and demanding target, so we are absolutely delighted that this has almost happened within the first few months.

“Residents in West Oxfordshire have responded extremely positively to the new service and we are very grateful to them – this impressive increase would not have been possible without their fantastic support.

“With a new service involving more than 45,000 households we have faced some teething problems. Although the service is not perfect yet, it is on the whole running smoothly and we hope to continue building on the success of recent months.”

The new service gives residents more opportunities to recycle and reduce the amount of waste sent to landfill. In addition to the long-term environmental benefits, it will also save the Council over £500,000 a year, which will help it to keep Council Tax bills low for residents.

The service saw the introduction of weekly food waste recycling collections, continuation of weekly black box recycling collections and optional, free fortnightly garden waste collections, which have so far been taken up by more than 30,000 households. It also includes fortnightly household rubbish collections for non-recyclable items.

So far, 1,656 tonnes of food waste has been collected from homes in West Oxfordshire and recycled into electricity and fertiliser for farmland at a processing plant in Cassington, instead of sent to landfill, where it rots and produces the harmful greenhouse gas, methane.

In addition to food and garden waste, residents are able to recycle a wide range of materials in their black boxes, including tins, foil, aerosols, plastics, paper, cardboard, glass, textiles, shoes and batteries.

Craig Cutajar, Contracts Manager for May Gurney, the Council’s waste and recycling contractor, said: “We’re very pleased to have helped with increasing recycling in West Oxfordshire and would like to thank local people for their support. We’ve started using vehicles with separate compartments for different materials to collect recycling and this means that more materials can be recycled.”

Residents can find out more about waste and recycling collections online at www.westoxon.gov.uk/waste or by calling 01993 861025.