Benchmarks for local authority recycling published.

Is your council any good at recycling, and how do you compare to similar authorities? Your council may not be listed individually, but you can now gauge your performance next to other similar authorities on a nationwide basis for the first time thanks to new research by WRAP (the government's Waste Resources Action Programme).

WRAP analyzed the official data supplied by local authorities for Waste Data Flow - the official data base that records our recycling figures - for 2007/08. The report concluded: "The kerbside scheme type (e.g. kerbside sort, single stream commingled or two stream commingled), acting in isolation, was not a defining influence in that no one type performed consistently better than the others."

While at first this may seem bland, it should send shock waves across some of the largest waste companies in the UK.  They have been telling local authorities for years that the best and only way to increase tonnages is to collect all materials mixed together in a wheelie bin. The official figures gathered in Waste Data flow no longer back up this claim.

Phil Hurst of the Campaign for Real Recycling said; “The analysis clearly nails the myth that the only way to increase tonnages is to collect materials through a commingled system. This argument has been a cornerstone from some sections of the waste industry for a number of years, but the figures do not back this up.

“For local authorities this report opens up a much wider variety of options if they are concerned about increasing their tonnages. The idea that a fully commingled system is the only way to increase tonnages is not backed up by the real-life evidence provided by local authorities. There are a wide variety of other factors in play and it is these that will help authorities move onto the next step up the recycling ladder.”

The report was produced to give local authorities a benchmark for comparing themselves with other similar authorities.
Looking at five key materials (paper, card, cans, glass and plastic) for example, the best performing authority collected 305 Kg per household per year, the worst just 72Kg per household per year. Similarly wide scales of variation were found in what WRAP call "major urban authorities" as well as strongly rural authorities.

The full summary report can be found at … http://www.wrap.org.uk/local_authorities/research_guidance/collections_recycling/benchmarking.html
(sorry – you will have to cut and paste above link)
Or at the CRR website www.realrecycling.org.uk/resources