The notion that 52% recycling by 2020 is less than ‘ambitious’ is familiar to waste campaigners. Now this has been confirmed in an article from the prestigious ENDS environmental news service.

Leading English councils hit 70% recycling rate

At least two English councils are achieving 70% recycling and composting during the summer months, making government targets to reach just 50% by 2020 look unambitious.

The two include South Oxfordshire and Rochford in Essex.

70% and above recycling and composting rates have been achieved in other parts of Europe for years – famously in the Flanders region of Belgium.

The government’s 2007 waste strategy requires English councils to recycle or compost 50% of their waste by 2020. But in 2007/08, 19 councils were already above that level (ENDS Report 406, pp 21-22 ).

Both Scotland and Wales have undertaken commitments to achieve 70% recycling targets.

According to ENDS:

South Oxfordshire, which achieved a 38% recycling rate in 2007/08, began a new waste collection contract in June. It is run by waste firm Verdant, a subsidiary of Greenstar.

The council already ran a co-mingled collection of dry recyclables alongside the paid-for garden waste collection. But in June, it added glass and Tetra Paks to its dry recyclables collection and started collecting food waste on a weekly basis from all households except flats. Since then, unaudited figures show it has achieved recycling and composting rates of 70.6% in June, 71.4% in July and 70.5% in August. The August rate breaks down as 36.0% dry recyclables, 21.6% garden waste and 12.9% food waste.

Rochford in Essex is reported to have broken the 70% recycling mark when it started a new collection contract in July 2008, that included free weekly collection of food and garden waste alongside accepting plastics and cardboard in its dry recyclables collection.