South Holland was the worst performing area in Lincolnshire for recycling and composting household waste in 2016/17.
Figures presented to the meeting of the Lincolnshire Waste Management Partnership indicate that South Holland District Council recycled and composted 28.3 per cent of household waste it collected in the last financial year. The next lowest authority was City of Lincoln with 36.2 per cent.
Central government had previously committed to meeting EU targets of recycling more than 50 per cent of waste by 2020.
South Holland District Council actually holds the highest percentage of recycling household waste in the county with 24.4 per cent.
However it has by far the lowest percentage of composting waste, just four per cent. City of Lincoln had the next lowest composting percentage with 16.8 per cent.
Councillor Roger Gambba-Jones is the district council’s representative portfolio holder for environmental services at the district council.
He said he believed the amount of waste recycled and composted would increase in future: “The County Council, our waste disposal authority, is experiencing huge pressure on its budgets, as are all councils.
“This has meant that funding to promote and encourage recycling, has therefore been withdrawn.
“As part of the Lincolnshire Waste Partnership, councils are now developing a Municipal Waste Management Strategy. This will be looking for ways of increasing household recycling rates across our county.
“A key objective to helping residents to recycle more effectively, will be examining the potential for collecting a consistent set of materials, focusing on quality not quantity.
“A food waste collection service will also be trialled in one district, to see if this can be rolled out across the county, to help reduce one of the major sources of contamination in our recycling.
“I am pleased that following a successful pilot our paid for green waste collection service will be established district wide. I fully expect the great success our Environmental Services team had in rolling out the pilot scheme to be repeated across the district. This will in turn lead to a significant increase in our recycling performance.”
Lincolnshire County Council dispose of the waste after the district council collections.
Its executive councillor for commercial and environmental management Eddy Poll said: “All councils in
Lincolnshire are working together to improve recycling rates and reduce the contamination of recycling. Recycling rates vary across our districts and over time.
“Our new strategy aims to tackle some of the issues people face in recycling correctly.”
