Environmentally friendly residents in North West Leicestershire have helped to boost the district's household recycling rate by 1.3 per cent, new figures have revealed.

In 2019, North West Leicestershire District Council launched its Recycle More… campaign which aims to improve the district's recycling rate to 50 per cent by 2023.

It also forms a key part of the council's ambition to be zero carbon by 2030.

Embracing this campaign, and no doubt through individual desires to be greener, residents boosted the recycled percentage of their waste to 46.3 according to figures - up to March 2020 - when compared to the previous year.

This may not sound a lot but in truth it equates to over 18,500 tonnes of waste that was recycled or composted in the 12-month period, rather than sent to landfill or incineration.

The figure, published by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), is the total household waste recycling, composting and reuse rate from April 2019 to March 2020.

The Recycle more… campaign has so far focused on:

• The launch of a weekly food waste collection trial with 2,000 households. Over 40 tonnes of food waste was collected and recycled between November 2019 and March 2020 – a CO2 saving of 31 tonnes.

• Battery and mobile phone kerbside recycling collections began in December 2019. More than two tonnes of batteries were collected in the first year

• A new recycling trolley is being trialled in an effort to make recycling easier and more convenient for residents

• The recycling of textiles, plastic shampoo and cleaning bottles, aerosol cans and clean foil have been encouraged widely

• Around 43,000 crisp packets have been collected at the council offices and recycled through a TerraCycle scheme

• Increased engagement with local communities and schools including a primary school competition to name the council's fleet of recycling vehicles.

Paul Sanders, Head of Community Services at North West Leicestershire District Council, said: "We're thrilled with the increase to our recycling rate and hope to see this trend continue in years to come.

"The credit must go to our residents who are recognising that we must all do better with our recycling.

"They do a fantastic and much appreciated job in separating recycling, which allows us to send high quality recycling with very little contamination directly to the companies who will recycle it.

"We now need to keep up the momentum to reach our recycling and zero carbon targets which are fundamental to a sustainable future for North West Leicestershire."

The District Council is currently working on the second year of Recycle more… which has included a review of the district's 'mini recycling sites'.

The food waste collection trial has also expanded to a further 2,000 households resulting in over 100 tonnes of food waste being collected.

Looking ahead, the council also plans to:

• Trial a second recycling trolley - residents are encouraged to keep an eye on the council's website and social media channels for updates

• Review the food waste collection trial

• Carry out an appraisal of the garden waste collection service and provision of additional garden waste bins

• More information about Recycle More… can be found on the council's website at HERE.