Graham, Tom and Ian

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Stockport wins praise as top urban recycler in England

by Lib Dem team on 6 February, 2015

Stockport’s bin collection service has won praise from recycling trade publication letsrecycle.com – you can red the full article here.

Stockport council waste manager Adam Forbes at Solutions SK’s depot

Stockport council waste manager Adam Forbes at Solutions SK’s depot

Since the start of the decade, the council has rolled out a series of initiatives to optimise recycling among its residents. Today, it stands as the top-performing urban authority in England – achieving a combined recycling, composting and reuse rate of 61.11% in 2013/14 and saving £2.7 million on disposal costs over the last year.

What is the council’s secret? The introduction of a four-bin system in 2009 is said to have worked wonders for the borough. The system includes: a blue wheelie bin or bag for paper and card; a brown wheelie bin or black box for glass, tins and plastic bottles; a smaller 140-litre black bin for residual waste, and; a green wheelie bin (or food waste caddy for flats) for mixed organic waste.

“That’s when our recycling rate skyrocketed,” says Mr Forbes. “We reduced the residual capacity and encouraged residents to recycle. The ‘right thing right bin’ communication campaign created awareness so when bins were collected crews identified the key problem areas.

   4 Comments

4 Responses

  1. adrian hallmark says:

    Generally seems quite good and in the Mews we work hard to ensure effective recycling – so I am puzzled why it seems there has been no Green bin collection for a second successive week.

  2. Iain Roberts says:

    Hi Adrian,

    I think your collection on the snowy Thursday was cancelled due to the weather and the Council then acted to catch up with the missed collections by prioritising other bins over the green – as in this weather people’s green bins aren’t filling up.

    • Chris says:

      Interestingly, pictures of the snow in the media that Thursday included a photo of refuse collection in Altrincham. Trafford Council go 1 point ahead…

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