HOUSEHOLDS in Warwick district are recycling less.
Despite headlines on the amount of litter in the world’s oceans, parks and streets, the district has seen a fall in the amount being put into recycling and compost bins.
Fifty-five per cent of total waste was recycled or composted in 2014, but by last year the figure had dropped to 53 per cent.
Three years ago households in the district recycled an average of 820kg each, but that figure was down 20kg in 2017.
Green Party spokesman Coun Ian Davison believes Warwick District Council should be setting targets to reduce the amount of rubbish being sent to landfill.
He told the Observer: “Recycling rates generally have been drifting down for some years for several reasons. This includes councils doing less education work as they have faced cuts, meaning progress has slowed.
“The income that councils or their contractors get for recycling is going down so there are less financial incentives to recycle.
“When they look at what goes into grey waste half of it is still recyclable. Most of that is food waste so the council and contractor could be putting efforts into changing this. However, in the current contract neither the council nor the contractor is properly responsible for this so it has stalled recycling progress.
“I’ll be urging the council to set targets to reduce the amount of grey waste. This should involve working with residents to reduce the amount of food and recyclable materials that are thrown into the grey bin.”
But the council said at the start of this year the amount of waste being composted was on the up.
A council spokeswoman said: “The rate of recycling is affected by a number of external factors such as campaigns, the economy, packaging, consumer trends and changing technology.”
