Cheltenham in top four in the country for waste recycling

CHELTENHAM is one of the top four towns in the country when it comes to the amount of waste collected.
A new league table from Resource Media, which ranks councils according to the amount of waste per person, showed Cheltenham Borough Council had decreased the amount of residential waste collected.
The council has gone from 210th to fourth position in the table from 2010/11 to 2011/12.
It also takes into account the amount of residential waste sent to landfill in each area, and the amount it recycles.
Councillor Roger Whyborn, cabinet member for sustainability, says: "This is great news for Cheltenham.
"The decrease in landfill waste and increase in recycling is undoubtedly because from April 2011 we made several changes to our waste collection by introducing weekly food waste collections, combined with only collecting residual waste fortnightly.
"It's clear that this caused a major step change in people's recycling habits. And the collection of plastic bottles, which while not adding much to the performance figures in itself, gave a major boost to dry recycling and focussed residents on the importance of recycling.
"We can also report a greatly increased demand in recycling boxes, which so far remains unabated."