Southend Council Fails to Meet Recycling Targets

Southend Council Fails to Meet Recycling Targets

Southend Council is continuing to miss its recycling targets, but it hasn’t revealed by how much. Their target is 54%, but they say they are still awaiting official data from Essex County Council. The council has recently been forced to renegotiate its recycling targets with Veolia, the company contracted to manage its waste. The agreed figure is just over 46%. The recycling target will be increased in phases and Southend would still be able to meet the national recycling target of 50% by 2020.

The last few years have seen recycling rates fall from 49% to just over 46%. A local councillor said that recycling rates have declined nationally and general waste is on the increase, and Southend is not alone. They added that extra general waste has financial implications in the form of government charges for waste disposal.

The council told Veolia that more had to be done to increase recycling rates, so the company have recruited 3 more recycling officers, who will be promoting recycling to residents in the borough.

Recycling rates were dealt a further blow after residents were given poor quality pink recycling sacks, some of which burst when they were put out for collection and were not collected as a result.

The council said that this was a supplier issue and that as soon as they were made aware of the problem, they instructed Veolia to stop handing out the sacks and replace them with tougher standard sacks.

The council do have a few reasons to be cheerful though, Veolia smashed their target of clearing 93% of litter from the streets by achieving 97%. A report said that litter removal and other waste targets had been achieved and exceeded. These figures represent the best standards that have been achieved for street cleansing in the borough since records began.