Recycling success in Sutton receives Government praise

We revealed in December 2018 that residents and waste contractors had achieved 50% of all waste recycled – two years ahead of schedule.

Now council leader Ruth Dombey has received a letter from Dr Therese Coffey MP, Under Secretary of State for the Environment, praising Sutton – and asking for details on how the rates were achieved.

Dr Coffey’s letter reads: “I wanted to take this opportunity to congratulate you...

“The London Borough of Sutton has reached our national targets for 2020, by achieving 50% of household waste recycled in 2017/18, a substantial increase of 13.5 percentage points above your 2016/17 rate.

“I would be interested to understand your success in this area and to share best practice with other local authorities.

“I am keen to hear what you believe has enabled you to reach theses recycling rates?”

Our recycling rates saw the second biggest increase anywhere in the country last year. Sutton is now one of just three London boroughs that is recycling 50% or more of its waste and now in the top quartile in the country.

Success was achieved thanks to overwhelming public support for two-stream recycling and new collections including food waste.

Cllr Manuel Abellan, Chair of Sutton Council’s Environment & Neighborhood Committee, described Dr Coffey’s letter as confirmation that what residents and waste collection teams had achieved was truly remarkable.

Cllr Abellan said: “I’m  extremely proud that Sutton is now being asked to help shape the nation’s approach to sustainable waste. Everyone knows how important and difficult a task managing waste is.

“Not only only have we achieved high recycling rates, thanks to the hard work of everyone in involved, we are producing less waste too. That is something we should all be very proud of too.

“Councillor Dombey and I are looking forward to feeding back to Dr Coffey the details of how all of this has been achieved with the hard and cooperation of everyone who lives and works in Sutton.”