Recyling rate target missed for previous financial year

The recyling rate in the city was just 44 per cent for the last financial year, below the target of 61 per cent.

Amey, which operates the waste service in Peterborough, said brown bin charges introduced by the city council are not to blame for missing the target,

A spokesperson said: “When the introduction of chargeable garden waste was introduced in May 2014, there was an initial drop of around four per cent from 2013/14 to 2014/15.

“However, the number of sign ups to the brown bins were similar for 2014/15 and 2015/16 so the decline is not solely due to the brown bin charge but other factors such as seasonal variations in garden waste.”

The spokesperson added: “Waste analysis shows that recyclables are still being put in the black bins. To help tackle this issue, all households received a sticker on their black bin requesting they put the food waste and recyclables in the correct bins.

“Earlier this year a new leaflet on the food waste collection service and a free supply of caddy liners were supplied to all households, with recent figures showing that food waste recycling has increased by six per cent as a result.

“Last year Peterborough City Council and Amey launched the ‘Love your Peterborough: Love your Community’ rewards scheme, which has seen recycling rates in some areas increase by 18 per cent.”

Amey met almost all of its targets for the past year. However, six times out of 9,859 it failed to remove fly-tipping in the required time.

Five of those occasions were in February 2016.

And there were five failures to provide a vehicle within 30 minutes for a Home to School transport service.