ESCC recycling success

A third (33%) of household waste in the county was recycled during the 2007/08 period '“ meeting the 2010 target set in the East Sussex and Brighton and Hove Waste Local Plan three years early.

The figures come from the Waste and Minerals Annual Monitoring Report, which has just been published by the Council, and sets out how waste has been managed in the county between 1 April 2007 and 31 March 2008. It also found:

'¢ The total proportion of public waste kept out of landfill for East Sussex has increased from 32% to 43%. This is particularly important given that one of the county's two landfill sites (at Beddingham, near Lewes) will soon be closing

'¢ A drop of more than 7,000 tonnes in the amount of public waste produced in East Sussex (from 276,700 tonnes to 269,300 tonnes)

While these were challenging targets, we've proved to those that doubted that we can achieve them, and there are lots of reasons why:

'¢ In the last year, more than 400 residents have received advice and assistance from the County Council's Compost Doctors service, which offers expert help to residents on home composting

'¢ As part of the County Council's Rethink Rubbish programme, grants have been given to seven schools and two community groups to carry out composting, recycling, and awareness-raising projects

'¢ The Community Challenge project, which works to increase recycling and reduce waste through work with schools and local communities, received a Highly Commended Valpak Educational Project 2008 Award. The Valpak awards recognise the best and most innovative recycling and waste reduction programmes in the UK.

Councillor Matthew Lock, Lead Member for Transport and Environment said: "Meeting our 2010 recycling target three years early is a great achievement and reflects all the hard work that's been carried out by East Sussex County Council and our colleagues at the district and borough councils.

"For years I've been saying we need to reduce landfilling and put waste to better use '“ it's clear we're now making significant progress towards this."

For more information about recycling and waste reduction, go to our website, www.eastsussex.gov.uk