Cheshire West and Chester Council’s new waste collection service, ‘Recycle First’, has seen recycling rates in the former Vale Royal area rise to 70 per cent, and the overall amount of waste sent for disposal drop by almost 40 per cent, since the service was first introduced in June.

The new, weekly co-mingled service, run by waste contractor May Gurney, enables residents to recycle their dry recyclables, food and small electrical waste, as well as textiles and used cooking oil. Residents of the Vale Royal area have also become the first English residents to recycle disposable nappies, after the council started a six-month trial service last week (2 August).

Councillor Lynn Riley, Executive Member for Community and Environment, said: “The new ‘Recycle First’ service, designed around what our residents told us was important to them, puts increasing recycling at its very heart.

“We knew that improving recycling rates would not only help us save more than £50 million over the life of the contract with May Gurney, but could potentially make Cheshire West and Chester one of the best performing areas in the country.

“And the figures so far show exactly that - the new weekly kitchen waste collection has proved particularly popular, with high participation resulting in more than 200 tonnes of kitchen waste being collected for recycling already.

“Although this rate will inevitably fall slightly due to the reduction in garden waste collections as winter sets in, we still expect to see an annual recycling rate of over 63 per cent for the borough once the service is fully up and running.”

Zak Shell, May Gurney’s General Manager, also welcomed the findings, saying: "These early figures are great news and I would like to thank residents for their efforts in committing to recycling as much as possible."

The council has this week (6 August) extended the ‘Recycle First’ service to residents of the Ellesmere Port and Neston areas, and intends to roll out the service to Chester and the surrounding villages on 8 October. Recycling roadshows explaining the new service will be running in the Chester area until 11 August.

Further information on the Recycle First service, including dates and locations of the recycling roadshows, can be found on Chester West and Chester Council’s website.