'Astronomical tonnages' of recycling in Stockton means more wagons needed

Дата публикации: 14-07-2026 14:09:36

A leading Stockton Council officer told how the numbers of people now recycling in the borough had smashed expectations

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A leading Stockton Council officer told how the numbers of people now recycling in the borough had smashed expectations

New waste collections have led to "astronomical tonnages" for recycling in Stockton which will need more wagons to collect, councillors have heard.

A leading officer has reported recycling rates much higher than expected following changes to bin collections in March. With the new fleet of vehicles nearly all on the road, Stockton Council says more will be needed to deal with the high take-up.

Stockton's recycling rate once reached as low as 25%, the lowest on Teesside and one of the lowest nationally. Now 80% of residents are recycling since the council swapped its collections to weekly recycling and fortnightly general waste, along with weekly food waste by law.

The council had predicted 65% of households would take part in some recycling overall. It projected 60% would put out dry recycling, 40% food waste, but 68% and 55% took part respectively, compared to a previous recycling rate of 35%.

Dale Rowbotham, service manager for community services, environment and transport, said 90% of households recycled on some rounds: "The first month in April we saw a reduction of around 1,800 tonnes of general waste that was collected from the kerbside. That's a reduction of around 35%.

"That has been mirrored in both April and May," he added, pointing to a significant saving in disposal costs. He said there had been a 55% rise in recycling collections.

"We've seen an increase in tonnage collected through the dry recycling from just over 700 tonnes to almost 1,100 tonnes. In April alone we collected over 500 tonnes of food waste.

"We were anticipating participation from residents that were going to present recycling of around 45% to 50%. We modelled our rounds to be hopeful of around 65%, but in those first few weeks we received well over 80% participation, which was a real, real positive."

He said this brought pressures and challenges: "We had to put additional vehicles on the road. We're seeing participation levels a lot higher than we thought was going to be the case. 80% of all households are putting some form of recycling out.

"We were expecting to receive around 13,000 tonnes of recycling this year. It's going to be tracking more like 18,000 tonnes."

He said they had been "caught out" by the number of new recyclers, with people queuing up for white bags for paper and card: "The level of participation that we've seen from residents has been huge. The main aim of these changes was to reduce general waste and increase recycling, and we've seen that play out significantly more than we expected."

He told the council's place select committee, which originally recommended the bin collection switch, that just over 25% of eligible households signed up to the new £40 annual subscription for collecting garden waste, against a 20% projection, with 22,000 households signed up and 4,000 new sign-ups this year and "a couple of hundred requests every single week for new bins".

He said they had only 14 of 22 new wagons delivered at first, and had to use older vehicles while still sorting and separating waste. They now had the full complement, but had to roll them out gradually: "There's only one or two that aren't. We need spares as well."

Asked by Councillor Tony Riordan whether the fleet was sufficient, Mr Rowbotham answered: "We would need more of those vehicles. In that first couple of weeks we were seeing astronomical tonnages with regards to food waste, plastic cans where we think a lot of people had been storing those up for a couple of weeks.

'No increase' in complaints about rats

"We're starting to see that bottom out but we're still seeing over 80% putting recycling out, which is really, really good. But it will mean we need more vehicles."

Cllr Marilyn Surtees asked about social media reports of more rats since food waste collection: "I find that incredible, unless we've got super-intelligent rats. They're sturdy boxes, they're very well secured."

Mr Rowbotham replied: "We definitely didn't see any increase in complaints going through to environmental health or directly through our channels. There was nothing reported direct where we could actually go and look into it in any more detail."

Cllr Jim Beall said Cleveland Fire Authority statistics did not show a rise in waste fires, as some had feared: "In fact the number of deliberate waste fires in Stockton reported to Cleveland Fire [Brigade] have reduced by 25% in the first quarter of this year.

"The officers should be commended for the implementation of a major change. I think it's been a success. I think people have responded admirably, residents need a pat on the back as well."

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