A WINCHESTER environmental group has slammed Hampshire County Council and Winchester City Council for their worsening recycling rates.

Hampshire was once one of the best councils in the country for recycling and the website states that 157,000 tonnes of recyclables from the county are processed every year.

However government figures have shown the county is way down in the UK recycling league table and according to the council’s website only recycles 41 per cent of its waste.

James Miller, chairman of the Waste Action Group, part of Winchester Action on Climate Change (WinACC), said Winchester was also getting worse.

Mr Miller said: “Winchester has a great deal to be proud of, its unrivalled history, great sense of community, excellent schools, the list goes on and on. That’s why it came as a great shock to me when I learnt that one thing we certainly can’t be proud of is the manner in which we manage our waste. In 2015 we managed to recycle a meagre 35 per cent. We’re in the bottom 20 per cent of councils in England.

“You may be wondering if it really matters that much. The truth is that it matters a great deal. Waste is one of the most significant contributors to climate change, contributing a similar amount of carbon as aviation.”

He added: “Many councils across the UK have been recycling more types of waste for years now. Hampshire never evolved, offering the same recycling service as it did 20 years ago. So, while many councils have been able to double or even triple recycling we have achieved minimal gains.”

Winchester City Council and Hampshire County Council urgently need to work together to bring about a revolution in recycling, although budgets are already stretched it has been proven that such schemes can often be profitable by re-arranging existing services.”

In Department of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) figures the county does very badly. In the figures Winchester is 278th out of 351 councils although it is even worse in other parts of the county with Southampton being 326th, Portsmouth 338th and the New Forest 314th. The best English council was South Oxfordshire at 66 per cent recycled.

A new recycling facility has opened in the town, to reduce the amount of business waste sent to landfill that could instead be recycled.

The new plant opened by mayor Des Scott, created 16 jobs, and is set to boost the recycling infrastructure for the region as well as providing waste management services across Hampshire for businesses.

The station is run by UK waste management company Biffa, which provides collection, landfill and recycling services to authorities and commercial companies throughout the country. Some materials processed at Eastleigh will be exported for waste to waste-energy, and will be converted into bioenergy at a plant in Holland.

Mr Miller said: “They collect a wider variety of plastics, food waste and glass. They also have robust enforcement to ensure residents are using bins correctly.”

He added: “Guildford Borough has a very similar demographic to Winchester and they achieve 58.2 per cent, and even Greenwich in London which has a high-density low-income population achieves 34.8, which is better than Winchester's 34.6.”

In Winchester City Council’s Essential Services Survey published last autumn, it was found that, 95 per cent of city residents believe recycling is important and 65 per cent consider it to be very important.

Richard Bisset, New Forest District Council’s Waste and Transport Manager said: “We are performing well within the group of Hampshire local authorities. All Hampshire councils collect paper, card, cans, tins, aerosols and plastic bottles from households for recycling. And we introduced a successful household glass recycling service in 2013 to make it easier for residents to recycle their glass bottles and jars.

As part of Hampshire’s strategic waste management partnership, Project Integra, we are committed to a waste management system that reduces waste to landfill and improves reuse and recycling.

Hampshire is in the top five English shire counties for landfill diversion, sending less than 10% of the county’s rubbish to landfill. Instead, black bags are sent to one of three energy recovery facilities in Hampshire where they are safely incinerated to generate enough energy to power 53,000 homes.

There are always improvements that can be made to increase recycling. We have just launched our text messaging reminder service 'Remind Me' for glass recycling and so far over 10,000 of our residents have signed up. www.newforest.gov/remindme Residents want to be able to recycle more from home and this is something we are working towards by taking part in a Hampshire-wide project this year to look at the range of materials collected. As well as that we will be taking our Recycle Right campaign on the road again this summer. "

According to Eurostat the UK is eighth in Europe for recycling at 46%, the top four countries being Germany at 65%, Austria at 62% and Netherlands at 50%.

A spokeswoman from Winchester City Council said: “The recycling rate in Winchester has plateaued in recent years, despite residents best efforts to recycle. The council provides a recycling service enabling residents to recycling 35 per cent of their waste on a weekly basis. However changes to the make-up of rubbish, including changing behaviours like people buying less paper products and improvements in manufacturing making ‘recycled’ products lighter, have led to this plateau.

“The council launched a new communications message last year, aiming at getting residents to ‘Recycle Right’. This was distributed to all residents in a bid to reduce the amount of wrong items in the bin, and recycle the correct ones. This theme will continue this year via a range of communications media to get the message across. The council is working hard with the county to include more recycled items in the bin, however the results of this work is a year or two away.”

She added “In the meantime, the council continue to promote Love Food, Hate Waste, a campaign encouraging better shopping and food preparation habits, and wasting less food. Additionally a Home Composting scheme, so residents can compost food waste down at home with the help of a subsidised composter. Encouraging people to recycle is always a challenge, and communication is the key. The Council is revamping its communications strategy in order to get the message out there, including new residents packs and information in schools.”