Local Authorities Increased Recycling Services

13 December 2010

This year the report looks at data from Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland for the first time. In England the report highlights that compared to 2007/08 local authorities continued to expand their services. There was a substantial increase in the number of authorities collecting the 5 key materials at kerbside – paper, card, cans, glass and plastic bottles, with 173 English authorities collecting all of these during 2008/09 (nearly half of all English local authorities) compared to 126 in 2006/07. Overall 206 UK authorities now collect all 5 materials at the kerbside.

WRAP’s Director for Local Government Services, Phillip Ward, said; “WRAP commissioned this report for two reasons.  The first is to provide local authorities with a simple way to judge how their recycling services are performing. When budgets are tight making sure that they get the best from their services is important. The second is to try to understand which measureable common factors affect the success of schemes.”

He continued; “This research offers insight for local authorities helping them understand the effect which different local choices can have on the performance of their recycling services. We hope that this evidence will help local authorities in making their decisions taking account also, of course, of their own local needs and circumstances.”

Earlier this year WRAP launched the Benchmark Tool: http://labenchmark.wrap.org.uk/, providing local authorities with a simple way to compare their kerbside dry recycling performance against authorities with similar demographics, to their nearest (statistical) neighbours and to national performance. The Tool draws on the data presented in this report.

The report can be found here: http://www.wrap.org.uk/local_authorities/research_guidance/collections_recycling/benchmarking.html