A recycling lorry
East Devon recycling lorry.

Best town for recycling was Cranbrook, with Exmouth following close behind

East Devon residents have been recycling huge amounts over the Christmas and New Year period.

Across the district, residents have put out a total of almost 1,200 tonnes of recycling and food waste between 27 December and 7 January for our crews to collect.

This is the peak time of year for our crews who have had to work long hours to collect all this material. But it means we have recovered valuable resources which will be used to manufacture new products, generate energy or make fertilisers for the South West’s farms, helping our environment and our economy.

The league leader for recycling was Cranbrook with the residents of our new town and surrounding areas recycling a whopping 180 tonnes on a single day on 30 December.

Close behind was Exmouth with the residents of our biggest town recycling a total of 300 tonnes on the two collections days of 28 December and 4 January.

During December, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs issued the national recycling statistics and East Devon is now 15th in the league table of more than 300 English local authorities with a recycling rate of 59% in 2018/2019. Even better than this is that East Devon is now number one in the league table for the least amount of refuse thrown away by each household.

Before the holiday period East Devon launched its new Alexa recycling skill…..’Ask East Devon District Council’. Already more than 600 residents are choosing to use this new means of checking their recycling, refuse and green waste collections and using it to get information on recycling in East Devon. You can also download the Amazon Alexa app to your smartphone and ask the same questions.

Cllr Geoff Jung, East Devon District Council’s portfolio holder for the environment, said: “This is a phenomenal result and I have nothing but praise and gratitude for our residents for playing their part in recycling so much and protecting our environment. This is the most recycling that East Devon has ever collected and thank you to our hard working crews who collected this huge volume of recycling.”

Cllr Kim Bloxham, East Devon District Council’s lead member for Cranbrook said: “We have been promoting recycling in Cranbrook and we are particularly pleased and encouraged that the community has responded in this way.”