Contamination in our bins falls

7:20am Thursday 11th October 2012 in News

THE amount of contaminated rubbish in the borough’s recycling bins has dropped, according to a new audit.

It was revealed in March that nearly 18 per cent of recycling collected in blue bins was contaminated making it non-recyclable, but that figure is now down by more than 10 per cent.

Residents who have been contaminating their recycling get yellow tags fixed to their bins to inform them the contents are no longer recyclable.

Cllr Victoria Holloway, Thurrock Council’s cabinet member for environment, said: “This is tremendous news in so many ways.”

Comments(1)

rogwj says...
11:41am Thu 11 Oct 12

A bit more inadequate reporting at the newsdesk or fudged figures at the council press department? Reading this report carefully, I note that 18% was the March 2012 contamination rate figure and it has been reduced by (more than) 10%, that is around 1.8%. Therefore, the latest contamination rate would be around 16%. An improvement, but hardly “tremendous news” as Councillor Holloway puts it. I am guessing that in the absence of a quoted contamination figure from the latest audit, the council wants to give the false impression that the contamination rate is now around 8% (18 minus 10). If the contamination rate has been reduced by 10 PERCENTAGE POINTS (which is a different thing altogether) it would now be around 8%, which of course could be regarded as “tremendous news”. A small point (excuse the pun), but clarification would be useful.

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