Essex County Council currently spends about £7m per year providing 21 Recycling Centres across the county for residents to dispose of their waste. Although some of these sites are modern, purpose built facilities many of the sites are old and small, starting life at a time when landfill was the only way we managed waste. However, the way in which waste is handled and these sites operate has changed in recent years, with an increasing need to separate many different materials. With this in mind a number of sites that we currently run may no longer be able to efficiently meet the needs of a modern Recycling Centre.

In addition to this, there have been many improvements to and an increase in the way that recyclable material is collected at the kerbside from households, which in turn, has resulted in fewer residents needing to take their recyclable material to the Recycling Centres.

Due to the pressure from central government to make savings and to streamline services, Essex County Council is required to review and reshape the way services are delivered. With unprecedented savings of £235m required over the next 3 years all our services need to be looked at in order to deliver these more effectively and efficiently. The authority is keen to ensure that it continues to provide the best recycling services for its residents within available resource; however maintaining existing levels of service may not be achievable.

The purpose of this survey is to collect information from residents that use our Recycling Centres. We will then use the feedback to help us develop a Recycling Centre service strategy, ensuring we target our resources on those services that users deem most important.

I look forward to receiving your views

Cllr Roger Walters
Cabinet Member for Waste & Recycling
Essex County Council