But opposition argue that fly-tipping is on the rise too

Ealing Labour Councillors are delighted with new figures that show the borough has hit its highest ever rates for recycling - but opponents say it's come at a heavy price.

More than 50% of all the borough’s waste was recycled in the first quarter of the new waste collection scheme, the most Ealing has ever recycled.

In June 54.55% of household waste was recycled. This was followed by 53.65% in July and 52.09% in August giving an average of 53.43% for the first quarter, compared to 45.39% over the same months in 2015. This is an eight percentage point increase on the same time last year

The council changed the way household waste is collected at the beginning of the summer, with rubbish and recycling now collected from wheelie bins on alternative weeks.

The percentage of food waste recycled from homes across the borough has also seen an increase over the first quarter of the new scheme, with 1666.72 tonnes collected compared to 1109.81 tonnes over the same period last year. The green food waste bins are collected weekly.

Councillor Bassam Mahfouz, cabinet member for transport, environment and leisure, said: “Thank you to everyone who’s doing their bit to help us boost our recycling rates here in Ealing. We simply can’t afford financially or environmentally to throw away food to landfill or valuable recyclable materials. The new system makes it easier to do the right thing and I'm delighted that we’re well on course to hit our ambitious 50% recycling target by 2018.”

However, Greg Stafford, Conservative Opposition Leader said: “Whilst the increased recycling is good, it appears to be coming at heavy price.  Fly tipping has increased by a whopping 216% since the Labour administration introduced a new system which involves fortnightly waste and recycling collections and street deep cleaning every 6 weeks.''

Lib Dem Councillor, Gary Malcolm said: '' The Council clearly should be concentrating on ensuring that our streets are clean and free from leaves, litter and items of fly tipped waste. The contractor is not being managed correctly leading to many issues of missed collections of kitchen and garden waste. This is not rocket science. The contractor and Ealing Council has failed and appears not to care about the cleanliness of our streets."

9th November 2016