Carlisle waste services praise

City Council is ‘high quality’ and ‘value for money’

(Date of issue: Tuesday, 2 June 2009)

Carlisle City Council’s waste service is ‘high quality’ and ‘value for money’.

An independent efficiency review undertaken by a specialist consultant in early 2009, found the City Council service to be in the top quarter of the best performing UK councils.

The service was also found to cost slightly cheaper than other councils, on average, to run. At £50 per household per year, it compares favourably with other local authorities across the country.

The review followed on from other performance data that identified Carlisle as the best recycling city in the North West and one of the top 25 performing local authorities in the UK.

Performance information drawn together by Wastedataflow from 47 local authorities in the North West, placed Carlisle as the best performing, with a 48% household recycling rate for 2007/2008. All UK figures audited by the Audit Commission also place Carlisle 24 out of all UK 398 local authorities. Provisional figures for 2008/09 show that our performance last year was just as good.

The figures were the result of City Council’s new waste collection scheme that included the expansion of kerbside recycling to thousands of householders. The staggering 48.74% compares to 34.51% in 2006/2007.

The amount of household waste that ends up in landfill has also halved the amount landfilled by the city in 2002. Five years ago, the City Council landfilled 37,500 tonnes of rubbish from Carlisle households. That figure has been cut by 14,000 tonnes as a result of residents supporting Carlisle’s ‘recycling revolution’.

Cllr Ray Bloxham, Portfolio holder for Environment and Infrastructure, said:

"Our recycling rates increased dramatically since the introduction of the new collection scheme and we’re now one of the best performing areas in the UK. The recent review also confirms that our waste services is of a high quality and is value for money."

Since the introduction of a new look waste collection scheme in Carlisle in March 2007, Carlisle City Council has expanded the range of materials that can be recycled. This includes plastic, cardboard, glass, paper and garden waste. Paper; glass bottles and jars; and tins and cans can all be recycled within a greenbox.