Top of the recycling table for HRRCs

Recycling rates at the Household Reuse and Recycling Centres (HRRCs) in the four boroughs that make up the South London Waste Partnership (Croydon, Kingston, Merton and Sutton) are amongst the highest in the country.

Figures obtained from WasteDataFlow^*(the national system used by local authorities to report waste data figures to government) reveal that all four boroughs appear in the top 12 out of the 135 authorities listed.

On average, well over three quarters of the waste brought to the HRRCs located within the South London Waste Partnership region is reused, recycled or composted.

With an average recycling rate of 84.02% across its three HRRCs, Croydon Council appeared in fifth position in the table.  Kingston was in tenth position with a 79.42% average recycling rate closely followed by Sutton in eleventh (79.28%) and Merton in twelfth (79.16%).

The management of the HRRC sites in the four boroughs was awarded by the South London Waste Partnership to EWC (Environmental Waste Controls) in 2008.

Since then, a number of changes have been made to the way the sites are managed:

• A significant extension to the range of household waste that can recycled – on average each HRRC now has recycling bins for around 30 different recyclable materials
• Introduction of ‘meet and greet’ staff at the entrances to all HRRCs
• Training and incentivisation of EWC staff to encourage users of the sites to divert as much waste away from landfill as possible.

Councillor Andrew Judge, Chair of the South London Waste Partnership Joint Committee, said:

“Before the Partnership awarded the contract to EWC, the sites had an average recycling rate of just under 50 percent.  To have increased that to well over 75 per cent in just three years is a fantastic achievement and is testament to the hard work of EWC and those in the Partnership who are responsible for managing the contract.”

^* The WasteDataFlow figures refer to the period April 2009 to March 2010.