East Riding Comes Second In England For Recycling Results

Residents in the East Riding are among the best recyclers in the country – it’s official.

East Riding of Yorkshire Council has come second in the whole of England in the latest Government recycling results.

The council was ranked second out of 351 local authorities in figures released by DEFRA showing recycling rates across the country, and also making it top in Yorkshire.

The record rate saw 66.1% of all household waste in the East Riding recycled, reused or made into compost in the year 2015-2016.

The national average UK recycling rate was 44.3% in 2015, a slight drop from the 44.9% recorded in 2014, but it is still the second highest annual figure on record.

Now East Riding residents have been praised for their help in achieving the impressive result.

Councillor Symon Fraser, the council’s portfolio holder for asset management, housing and environment, said: “I want to pay tribute to the amazing work our residents do in recycling their waste.

“As a council we put the systems and facilities in place, but the success is down to the people of the East Riding for really getting behind us and sorting their rubbish into their blue, green and brown bins.

“These figures are beyond our most optimistic expectations and are a fantastic achievement for the residents and the council’s hard working refuse, waste and recycling staff.”

The only council in England to achieve a higher recycling rate was South Oxfordshire District Council with 66.6% of its waste recycled. It has come top in the results for the past three years.

In the previous year’s figures, for 2014-2015, East Riding of Yorkshire came 22nd in the country with a recycling rate of 57.5%.

The council has put the huge leap of 20 places on the national ranking down to a number of successful pro-active schemes, all of which has seen residents and staff working together to recycle more and more rubbish.

Successful schemes have included:

• Trials were held this year in Bridlington, Willerby, Market Weighton, Pocklington and Stamford Bridge, where the council placed tags on bins as a polite reminder to residents to put their food waste into their brown bin for recycling, and not in their green non-recyclable bin. This led to an average decrease of around 1kg each week of waste per household in the green bin.

• Around 5,000 bags of free compost were given away to residents at events across the areas. The compost was all processed from the food and garden waste generated by residents’ brown bins.

• The Reuse Shop at the Humberfield household waste and recycling site continues to sell good quality items such as furniture and electrical goods which residents no longer need and have donated at their local household waste recycling sites.

• The council’s team of three waste and recycling officers go out and about giving talks to schools and community groups to educate people about recycling, as well as offering advice and support to residents, monitoring bins and working closely with the refuse collection teams to address issues at an early stage.

• Regular communications, marketing and social media campaigns to get the recycling message across to residents, including a free text message reminder scheme for bin collection days.

• The area’s 10 household waste recycling sites are open seven days a week (apart from Christmas Day, Boxing Day and New Year’s Day).

April 2015 also saw the start of new waste contracts which changed the way the East Riding’s waste was processed.

Now more material is extracted for recycling before the rest is sent to be processed into refuse derived fuel (RDF). No waste is sent to landfill any more.