Residents in East Cambridgeshire are continuing to help the district to climb the league tables after another stellar year of recycling.

The Department for Environment Food & Rural Affairs has announced the recycling performance for English councils during 2014/15 and for the second year running East Cambridgeshire was the third most improved area with an increase of 11.2% from 2013/14.

Since the introduction of wheeled bin recycling services in 2013, the district’s recycling percentage has increased from 33.4% (2012/13) to 56.6% (2014/15). Of 320 councils responsible for waste collections in England, East Cambridgeshire has moved from 257th to 26th position in the recycling league table.


Cllr Julia Huffer, Waste and Recycling Champion of East Cambridgeshire District Council said: “The improvement in our recycling rates since the introduction of our wheeled bin recycling service in 2013 has been nothing short of astonishing. From a low recycling rate we are now pushing towards our target of 60%. To put that into context, we have recycled over 8500 more tonnes of waste than we did in 2013 – this is  the equivalent of diverting nearly 700 full collection lorry loads from landfill to recycling.

“We must say a huge thank you to our residents who have embraced the wheelie bins service. However we know we can not be complacent and will continue to promote and encourage people to recycle more through ideas such as our monthly prize draw initiative – ‘It pays to recycle in East Cambridgeshire’ - which has so far awarded over £5,000 in prizes to residents for using their blue recycling bins.”
    
The wheeled bin recycling service involves:

• A blue lidded wheeled bin recycling collection, including paper, glass, food & drinks cans, plastic bottles & hard plastic food containers, cartons and cardboard. This is collected fortnightly.
• A green lidded wheeled bin collection for garden and food waste. This is also collected fortnightly.
• Refuse in black sacks is collected weekly

For more information on the waste and recycling service in East Cambridgeshire please call 01353 665555.