Brighton and Hove has one of the south east’s lowest rates of recycling, as highlighted on a new map of the country’s best and worst recyclers.
The interactive map, produced by recycling and resource management company, SITA UK, is based on 2012/13 data published by the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra).
Brighton and Hove is one of just one of nine authorities which is coded red, which means its recycling rate is below 30%.
But at 26.8%, Brighton and Hove is not quite in last place – that honour belongs to Ashford with just 11.9% recycled.
Chief Executive Officer of SITA UK, David Palmer-Jones said: “There is a good deal of publically available data for recycling and waste services at a local authority level, but we wanted to collate this information and present it in an easy-to-understand graphical format that everyone could use – not just those with enough interest to trawl through spreadsheets.
“One of the findings from The Urbin Issue was that householders had little understanding of the national picture, or their own authority’s recycling performance relative to others – which contributed to them feeling disengaged and unmotivated to recycle.
“If we are going to improve recycling rates, our industry needs to engage the householders that play such a vital role in the process and providing quality, accessible information is the first step in that process.
“The colour banding will inevitably cause some debate, and we value feedback on it so that we may consider refining future versions, but we felt that a bold, simple, banding would help to engage a wide audience – it is not intended to make a political statement.”
Two points……
We put our recyclables out for collection … But they do not get collected!
The figures a based on weight not content… Who’s to say the ‘rubbish’ part is actually recyclable?
Hardly surprising. Years of truculent arseyness by the GMB binmen, doggedly sticking to arbitrary “rules” about what can and cannot be recycled, refusing to take boxes because there is one plastic bag in it, etc etc, littering the roads with spilt recycling, or just not collecting them at all, has led to much demoralisation and demotivation of residents. All these years of attrition from the GMB have battered their spirits.
I wonder why Cllr Hawtree has not commented here?
Well it was Ben Johnson who was a member of the GMB 😉
The whole time point scoring continues Veolia who own the waste make even more money.
Useful points in the article perhaps some effort will be made in applying them in Brighton once the posturing ahead of next years election is over.
I shall not be holding my breath despite the toxicity of the air courtesy of Veolia and the complicity of our politicians.
Brighton and Hove Council currently ranks 192 of 203 waste disposal authorities for household recycling rate.
Wonder what the university ‘right on’ student brigade who vote Green include in their definition of ‘green’….recycling? Bet they’d claim they do whilst chucking allsorts into the black bin bag.
Bring back magpie. When magpie was collecting they collected every recyclable material. Since then every year the list has got less, now its no plastic containers only bottles, tins but no lids (astounded by that one), no foil etc etc. Also in Hanover we don’t have even a fortnightly service it appears on average to be every 6 weeks, if we are lucky. Amazing how un-Green our green council is, but never mind if you are a cyclist there is no limit to what the council will do for you.
Magpie never went away!