Shropshire 'one of the best' for recycling

The authority was named the seventh best area in the country, with 55 per cent of households recycling waste.

But it still produced 71,894 tonnes of waste that isn’t recycled.

Top of the list was East Riding, with 65 per cent of households recycling, while Westminster City was worst with just 17 per cent of households recycling their waste.

Councillor Joyce Barrow, Shropshire Council’s portfolio holder for Waste Management, praised the efforts of residents to recycle.

She continued: “In the last few years we have seen a huge improvement in the amount of waste that is recycled in Shropshire, and huge improvements in the services and facilities that the council offers to residents to make it easier for them to recycle.

Effort

“Though Shropshire Council and Veolia provide and deliver these services, we would not have seen such a big increase in our recycling rate without the efforts of local people, so we have to thank them for their support and encourage them to keep up the good work to help us increase this figure even further.”

The new figures were produced by smartphone recyclist, Envirofone, using data from the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs.

They also looked at data from YouGov and found 3.7 million Britons admit to not making an effort to regularly recycle with those aged 18 to 24 the biggest culprits.

Denise Timmis, head of online at Envirofone, said: “It really is shocking to see how little of our waste is recycled.

“As a company that is passionate about recycling, we think it’s really important to make as much use out of our materials as possible. We don’t need to give up on things so soon and we don’t always need to buy new – even damaged phones can be recycled.

“We hope our research helps to spread awareness of how much of our waste is currently not being recycled and encourages people to take extra measures to ensure we’re able to increase the amount of recycled waste here in the UK.”