Residents urged to start recycling as rate drops (From This is Hampshire)

Residents urged to start recycling as rate drops

9:00am Sunday 3rd February 2013 in News

TEST Valley residents are to be urged to redouble their recycling efforts after the recycling rate in the district has dipped.

Latest figures show that the recycling rate is just 34.9 per cent, which compares unfavourably with next-door Wiltshire, where the rate has increased to 50 per cent following a big change to the collection regime.

Members of the borough council’s overview and scrutiny committee have been told that a pilot project undertaken in an area with a particularly low recycling rate (East Anton in Andover) has had limited impact so far, and what is needed is a high profile promotional campaign designed to increase awareness across the borough.

Some confusion In his report to councillors, environment services chief Paul Wykes said: “Anecdotal evidence suggests that some residents may be confused by the recycling scheme and mix recyclable and non-recyclable products, while some choose, for whatever reason, not to recycle at all.”

To counteract any complacency, a new recycling campaign, to be called ‘Recycling Stars’, is likely to get under way, and it aims to increase awareness, increase participation, minimise waste, decrease contamination and ultimately raise the recycling rate.

In recent years the council’s biggest success in boosting the recycling rate came in 2006, when fortnightly collections of non-ryclable waste came in and the rate of recycling jumped from 27 per cent to 35 per cent.