Recycling rates set to soar as city joins the green revolution

In 2008-09, Hull had the second-worst recycling and composting rate in Yorkshire and the Humber at 25.95 per cent, only marginally above the bottom-ranked authority Calderdale, where the rate was 25.84.

But in December, three months after launching a major revamp of its kerbside waste collections, officials at Hull Council recorded a 38.23 recycling rate, and are now predicting more than 45 per cent by the end of this year.

That would mean the achieving of a target set by residents, and shared with East Riding Council through a joint waste management strategy, of recycling and composting at least 45 per cent of household waste by 2010.

The improvement has delighted those tasked with delivering the strategy.

The waste development manager at Hull Council, Doug Sharp, said: "The new recycling collection system has had such a positive response. Our participation rates on the old blue and black bin collections were 30 per cent; now it is 70 per cent-plus.

"We have seen a wholesale behavioural change. It's a massive success story."

In the East Riding, where the current rate is 36 per cent, waste management chiefs are also confident of crossing the 45 per cent threshold by the end of the year.

The portfolio holder for the environment, waste and recycling at East Riding Council, Symon Fraser, said: "We are pretty confident of getting there, it's 36 per cent at the moment.

"One of the biggest contributors now is getting the garden waste out of the recycling waste stream. Garden waste is the biggest single amount after papers and magazines, which we did years ago.

"We only rolled out the brown bins last September so we haven't seen the full year's effect of that yet.

"Once we do I'm confident we'll see a 40 to 42 per cent rate by September this year.

"We are also trialling food waste collections (in Brough, Elloughton and Welton), and assuming that's successful we'll roll that out across the rest of the East Riding, and that will take us to 45 per cent."

He added: "That could be done quite quickly because the collection infrastructure is already there."

A more difficult challenge for both councils remains the thorny issue of building a waste-burning incinerator at Saltend, on the border between Hull and the East Riding.

The facility is central to delivery of the joint strategy but is way behind schedule and faces massive public opposition.

The councils would between them be able to burn up to 240,000 tonnes of household waste each year at the facility.

Without it they are being forced to pay for sending excess biodegradable waste to landfill.

The Government sets every council an annually decreasing allowance of what it can send to landfill.

Those that exceed the limit are encouraged to buy permits to bury the rest of it from councils with surplus capacity through the Landfill Allowance Trading Scheme.

Failure to do so would see crippling fines of 150 a tonne for the amount over the allowance going to landfill.