Less than three per cent of Kent’s household waste was sent to landfill in 2016/17, according to provisional performance data from the Kent Resource Partnership (KRP)’s annual report released today (22 September).
The report, which was unveiled by the KRP at their annual conference in Canterbury today, provides data for a range of activities delivered by the KRP in 2016/17. It also showed that 46 per cent of Kent’s household waste was recycled or composted, while 51 per cent was sent to generate energy.
The KRP is the waste and resource partnership comprising all 12 of Kent's borough councils and Kent County Council. The KRP (as the Kent Waste Partnership) was formed in 2007 in order to deliver the Kent Joint Municipal Waste Management Strategy (KJMWMS).
Official data is expected to be available later this year from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), but the KRP claims that this provisional data represents steady progress compared to the previous year.
The total costs across the 13 Kent councils when delivering its recycling and waste services to 1.5 million residents was just under £98 million – an average cost of £155 per Kent household per year, or equivalent to an average cost of £2.99 per Kent household, per week. An additional £16 million was invested in keeping Kent’s streets clean.
Activities delivered by the KRP throughout 2016/17 included:
- A food recycling campaign (underpinned by WRAP’s Recycle Now communications);
- Numerous anti-litter initiatives (which included piggybacking on the ‘Great British Spring Clean’ national campaign previously led by Keep Britain Tidy);
- The first steps towards an intelligence-led approach to tackling fly-tipping and environmental crime;
- A three-phase health and safety programme for over 35 officers across the KRP;
- The KRP’s Materials End Destinations Publication for 2015/16; and
- Continued engagement with various key organisations across the resources sector.
Commenting on the release of the report, Councillor Rory Love, KRP Chairman, said: “Our new look Annual Reports will help us in three ways. Firstly, they will enable us to track our own performance and activities against our Kent Joint Municipal Waste Management Strategy. Secondly, they will provide transparency to Kent residents on the effective joint working being carried out across Kent. And thirdly, they will help keep our key partners informed across the resource and waste industry.”
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