Are You A Table Topper?

It's time, once again, to look at the recycling league tables to see who's leading the way and if there are any trends. Helen Amos studied the statistics to bring you this report

Step forward Staffordshire Moorlands District Council, Clackmannanshire, Denbighshire and Banbridge District Council. As the best performing local authorities in their own country when it comes to recycling, these four are blazing a trail to the top of the league tables for 2009/10.

England Expects

As you will have read (hopefully) earlier in this issue, England has surpassed the 40 percent recycling barrier, but at the top of its charts the leading authorities appear to have hit something of ceiling.

Staffordshire Moorlands District Council remains the top performer with an impressive rate of almost 62 percent, but recorded an increase of just 0.25 percentage points in the last year. Rochford District Council, however, proved that an already "above average" performance can be significantly improved, climbing from 49.51 percent last year to more than 61 percent this time around, bringing with it a climb from 32nd to third in the league table. But that was only enough to become the ninth most improved English authority: Rugby Borough Council and South Oxfordshire District Council both added more than 18 percent to their previous totals to take first and second spots respectively.

It may also be worth noting that of the top 50 recycling local authorities in England, 35 are collection authorities, six are unitaries and seven are responsible for disposal.

Propping up the table, with rates still less than 20 percent, a couple of councils are struggling to improve. Newham, Lewisham and Manchester City all find themselves at the bottom of the list, no doubt struggling with the problems of an inner city location, with its high-rise living, high turnover of residents and communicating with diverse groups of people. Credit, however, to Newham for an increase of more than three percent, making it statistically the best performing of those under the 20 percent barrier.

The Isles of Scilly Council was highly criticised for its performance in 2008/09. In an area of outstanding natural beauty (AONB), the council has been struggling with an ageing incinerator and the extra expense of shipping materials to mainland England. According to the Island's website, its ScillyWaste waste minimisation project has "delivered some great practical waste solutions over the last year, helping residents reduce, re-use and recycle as much as possible." In a bid to reduce plastic bag waste, householders have been given a specially designed, re-usable ScillyWaste shopping bag, and 30 stores now have "plastic bag stuffers", where plastic bags can be stored for re-use by other customers. The plastic bag issue is vitally important in this AONB as 57 percent of the rubbish found on the beaches is plastic.

Working Hard In Wales

Against the backdrop of Zero Waste Wales, the trends in landfill, recycling and composting are all moving in the right direction. Total waste arisings across Wales have been decreasing steadily since their 2004/05 peak, and there has been a general downward trend in the landfill figures since 2001/02, with recycling and composting steadily on the rise.

The amount of household waste now landfilled is less than a million tonnes, a decrease of more than a third since 2001/02, while more than 600 000 tonnes of household waste was re-used, recycled or composted in 2008/09 and 2009/10.

It's nip and tuck at the top of the recycling table, however, with Denbighshire making a massive leap from 18th out of the 22 authorities in 2008/09. With that rise of 18 places comes an increase of 18.8 percent in recycling, to a table-topping 52.5 percent. However, interim figures released by the Welsh Assembly Government in February showed that the Isle of Anglesey achieved a recycling and composting rate of 57.04 percent for the three months from July to August in 2010. Denbighshire was marginally behind with a nonetheless improved rate of 56.69 percent. Anglesey has attributed its success to the island-wide food waste collection service introduced in April 2009.

Anglesey and Denbighshire are joined by Wrexham as three of the stand out authorities over the last 10 years. From 2001/02 to 2009/10 Anglesey has increased by 48.6 percentage points, Denbighshire by 48.5 and Wrexham by 37.9 percent.

At the other end of the table comes Blaenau Gwent, still the only authority not to break the 30 percent barrier, but it is 4.2 percent closer than it was last year. Wales also has the smallest gap in performance from the top to the bottom of its table.

Steady Scottish Progress

Scotland's overall recycling rate for 2009/10 is 36.7 percent, an increase of 1.5 percentage points on 2008/09, and while none of the councils have shown the massive improvements registered by others, there has been a general, steady, upward trend.

Last year's leading recycler, Moray, failed to make it to the top five this year and it was some of the leading performers that showed the way once again with the biggest improvements. Not least of these was Clackmannanshire, which reached 46.7 percent with an increase of 2.2 percentage points, while South Ayrshire in third place showed a rise of 4.4 percentage points and Argyll & Bute (11th), Perth & Kinross (8th), North Ayrshire (14th) and Dundee (15th) all showing a better than three percentage points rise. Hats off, however, to Renfrewshire which topped the lot with a 5.5 percentage point hike to climb seven places in the table.

Those councils struggling to increase their rates are those with very different, but particular difficulties: Glasgow with its high proportion of tenements and high-rise properties; and the island communities, Eilean Siar (the Western Isles) and Shetland.

Targets In Sight

Northern Ireland's total municipal waste arisings during 2009/10 were just over a million tonnes, a decrease of 1.3 percent on 2008/09. Of this waste, 33.1 percent was sent for recycling (including composting), up from 31.6 percent the previous year and up almost nine percent from 2002. Towards Resource Management: The Northern Ireland Waste Management Strategy 2006-2020 set the target for recycling household waste at 35 percent by 2010 - a target the country could certainly achieve within the next 12 months.

Belfast City Council has the highest rate of waste sent to landfill at 77.6 percent (perhaps due to the same problems as attributed to the likes of Glasgow and Lewisham elsewhere in the UK), while Banbridge District Council and Antrim Borough Council remaining in the top two positions as the only councils to break the 50 percent marker, albeit in reverse order to last year. Banbridge's increase of 3.7 percent was enough to take it to top spot.

The percentage of municipal waste landfilled has decreased over the years, falling from 91.1 percent in 2002 to 66.1 percent in 2009/10. Ards is notable for an increase from single figures in 2002 to more than 40 percent for last year.

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