Bin half full on recycling at Dacorum..

At Dacorum Full Council on 26th September, Conservatives were keen to talk about improving household recycling until Lib Dem Councillor Adrian England pointed "over the fence" at how much more next door councils are already achieving.

In questions to Cllr Janice Marshall, Cllr England asked:

"Does the Portfolio-holder agree with me that, as good as it is to see incremental progress on recycling there is still low-hanging fruit to be picked?

Our neighbours in Liberal Democrat controlled Three Rivers DC have been over 10% ahead of Dacorum on this for at least the last five years!

How long is the Council prepared to wait before making a serious attempt to reach AT LEAST 60% - can Councillor Marshall give us a year?"

The Conservative Cabinet member was unwilling to commit..

Background:

In 2014 Dacorum introduced its new recycling system, designed to take advantage of technology which made recycling easier to process.

Official "Waste Data Flow" figures show that this had an initial impact of 2.8% points in 2015/16, but that rate of improvement has slackened in successive years, from 2.8 to 2.1 and this year 1.3%.

During the same period our other neighbours in St Albans DC have overtaken Dacorum and are now five points ahead, having been five points behind DBC in 2012/13.