Amount of Mid Sussex black bag rubbish falling as more people return to work

The amount of Mid Sussex household waste thrown away has started to fall as more and more people return to work.
Wheelie bins in Mid Sussex. Pic Steve Robards SR1705373 SUS-170321-155152001Wheelie bins in Mid Sussex. Pic Steve Robards SR1705373 SUS-170321-155152001
Wheelie bins in Mid Sussex. Pic Steve Robards SR1705373 SUS-170321-155152001

Performance figures discussed during a meeting of the district council’s cabinet on Monday (October 18) showed that 112 kilos of waste per household was disposed of during the first quarter of this financial year.

While this was higher than the 107 kilo target, it was lower than the figure from the last quarter of the previous year, which saw 116 kilos of rubbish per household thrown away.

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With more up-to-date figures due to be published shortly, members hoped the amount of waste would fall even further.

Judy Holmes, assistant chief executive, said that – as with all pandemic-related matters – it was difficult to predict what the recovery would look like.

But she added: “We would hope that, as more people return to work, we will see a reduction.

“We continue to educate and encourage people to recycle as much as possible.”

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One figure which the council was no doubt pleased to see increase was the number of people who used the green waste composting service.

This rose from 21,032 to 21,422 in the space of a few months.

Overall, the council just missed its performance targets for the amount of waste sent to landfill as well as customer satisfaction when it came to street cleansing.

Only 72.2 per cent were happy with the latter.

But it was spot on when it came to the amount of household waste  – 46 per cent – sent for reuse, recycling and composting.

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Looking at other services, a report to the cabinet said most – 95 per cent – were performing at or close to their targets, with action being taken to address the two that were falling short.

They were: the average time taken to process planning applications and the percentage of Building Control plans which were checked within 15 working days.

Councillors were told they would receive a ‘plethora’ of information about the district’s electric vehicle charging points in the new year.

The report showed there had been an increase in the use of charging points in car parks in Burgess Hill, East Grinstead and Haywards Heath.

Between them, they generated just shy of 9,000 kilowatt hours of power – up from 8,690 kilowatt hours at the end of 2020/21.