(L-R): Councillor Beryl Hunwicks, Vice-Chairman of Surrey Waste Partnership with Councillor Vivienne Chapman, Chairman of the Partnership, and Andy Doran, Chairman of the Resource Association.
Surrey Waste Partnership has become the 50th local authority and 84th signatory to sign up to the End Destination of Recycling Charter.
The 12 Surrey authorities that make up the partnership have brought the total amount of council signatories to the charter to 60.
Launched on 7 June 2012 by the Resource Association (RA) – a trade association for the reprocessing and recycling industries – with the support of the Local Authority Recycling Advisory Committee (LARAC), the charter invited local authorities in England and Northern Ireland to sign up to a commitment to publish the names and locations of the end destinations of recyclable materials collected from residents. The charter came after a report by YouGov suggested that 32 per cent of people would be willing to recycle more if they knew where their recycling ended up.
In a signing ceremony which took place at a recent meeting of the Surrey Waste Partnership, the Chairman of the Partnership, Councillor Vivienne Chapman said: “Surrey Waste Partnership has considered the requirements of the End Destination Charter carefully and is pleased to support it. We agree with the Resource Association that more can be done to explain clearly to the public where their recycling goes and what actually happens to it. We see this as an important extra step we can take to enthuse and motivate our residents to recycle and offer greater transparency to an information hungry public.”
The RA’s Chair, Andy Doran, added: “I am especially pleased to welcome Surrey Waste Partnership as signatories to the charter. It’s clear that there is a growing mood to deliver greater transparency and more information to the public wherever possible and we’re delighted that our colleagues in Surrey share this view. I urge other councils and local authority partnerships to follow suit.”
Phase 1 extension
Following the signing, the RA’s Chief Executive Ray Georgeson confirmed that the deadline for completing the first phase of the charter and ‘producing fresh information on end destinations’ was extended from ‘summer 2013’ to the ‘end of December 2013’.
He commented: “In a workshop session recently, we listened carefully to our council signatories and realised that the end of the year made more sense in terms of validating and preparing the data gathered for publication. We will also be assisting signatories by producing a template for publication and some guidance on good practice, and this will be available to signatories by the first of November.”
The Welsh Government has already published its first ‘Dry Recycling End Destinations’ report, which enables the public to see where their waste has ended up.
Read more about the End Destination of Recycling Charter.
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