Lewes District Council are Table Topping Contenders

Lewes District Council’s new recycling service is being heralded as ‘transformative’ after a review of performance has shown the authority is vying for a top spot in the league of councils in England.

Collections of dry mixed recycling have increased dramatically since the council replaced the old system of boxes and bags with a single wheelie bin.

Recycling rates used to be just 19.3% but have now rocketed to a remarkable 29.7%. Food and garden waste collected add just over a further 10 percentage points to the total recycling.

With this pace setting performance set to continue, Lewes District Council is forecast to be amongst the top 5% of English waste collection authorities for 2019/20.

Councillor Andy Smith, Leader of Lewes District Council, said:

“The credit for this transformative achievement belongs to the council staff who have so diligently implemented the new service and our residents who have so enthusiastically embraced it.

“Successfully delivering 35,000 wheelie bins across the district required military style planning and precision. It was also important to ensure people got the right information about what could and couldn’t go in the wheelie bin.”

The list of items that residents can recycle includes glass, paper, cardboard, plastic, tins and cans.

In two of the last three quarters, Lewes District Council was top out of 36 other authorities that use the same recycling facility run by Viridor.  On average 98% of the recycling was compliant.

Simon Prior, Head of Local Authority Development at Viridor, said:

“The quality of the comingled recyclables received from Lewes District Council illustrates that a clear communication roll-out programme with subsequent messaging to residents can provide the basis for a successful high-quality collection scheme.”

For more information about recycling, please visit lewes-eastbourne.gov.uk/recycling

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