The waste and recycling team at East Riding of Yorkshire Council has been shortlisted for two prestigious National Recycling Awards.
The service, which manages the collection and recycling of residents’ household rubbish, has been nominated for Team of the Year and Campaign of the Year in the public/third sector categories.
It is the second year running the council has reached the final in the Team of the Year category at the annual awards.
The National Recycling Awards honour achievements in the UK recycling industry. Previous nominees have included Ikea, Costa and Network Rail.
The council’s waste and recycling team has been recognised for achieving the highest recycling rate of any council in the country for 2016/17.
Thanks to the support of East Riding residents, the council was able to recycle, reuse or compost 65.4% of all household waste. The national average is 45.1%.
The team was also recognised for a successful bin-tagging campaign held across the East Riding last year, in which all 153,000 green bins were tagged with a message encouraging residents to put all food waste in their brown bins, not in their green bins.
The scheme led to an increase of 2,300 tonnes of food and garden waste being placed in brown bins for recycling, and at the same time a reduction of 2,000 tonnes of waste in the green bins.
Councillor Symon Fraser, portfolio holder for strategic asset management, housing and environment, said: “It’s fantastic that our waste and recycling staff have been nominated for two prestigious national awards because they are a hard working team and extremely dedicated to increasing recycling in the East Riding.
“But we wouldn’t have been shortlisted without the continued support of residents taking an active part in our recycling schemes and working with us to become the best recyclers in England.”
The winners of the National Recycling Awards will be announced at a ceremony in London on Thursday 28 June.
The annual National Recycling Awards are run by Materials Recycling World (MRW), the UK’s leading publication and website about the waste and recycling industry.
Robin Latchem, editor of MRW, said this year the calibre of entries was extremely high, demonstrating the wealth of talent and innovation across the sector.
He said: “Our awards are often the first to highlight innovation and best practice in recycling and waste management and it’s exciting to see previous winners establishing themselves as exemplars of resource efficiency.”
