Council '˜exceeding recycling target'

There are 73 councils in England where the rate of household recycling has already exceeded the EU target for the UK, to recycle at least 50 per cent of waste generated by households by 2020.

West Lindsey District Council is rated at 38 out of 73 with 54.2 per cent of household waste sent for reuse, recycling or composting.

WLDC operations team manager Ady Selby said: “We have achieved more than 50 per cent recycling since we introduced the popular triple bin scheme in 2009.

“The service combines a free garden waste service, co-mingled dry recycling and residual waste, all collected fortnightly for eight months of the year. Garden waste is suspended in winter months.

“Satisfaction with waste collection continues to increase and last year 93 per cent of residents were either satisfied or very satisfied with the service they received.”

West Lindsey has been nominated for a ‘best performer award’ for refuse collection at the Association of Public Service Excellence awards in each of the last five years, and has won the award on two occasions.

Mr Selby said: “To win this we are benchmarked against around seventy other local authorities in categories such as efficiency, satisfaction, value for money, health and safety, training and Human Resources.”

And he added that drivers and loaders undergo “bespoke” training on a regular basis.

The figures were revealed by refuse and recycling workers’ union 
GMB.