COUNCIL PERFORMANCE ON WASTE IS 'RUBBISH'

12.00.00am BST (GMT +0100) Wed 16th Sep 2009

A leading Liberal Democrat on the new County Council has attacked the authority for falling well short of its targets on recycling.

In a report to the County Council today it is revealed that, despite a target of 40% recycling, the current rate is only 27%.

Lib Dem Councillor Carol Woods said, "The failure to increase recycling to level expected means that landfill use is 10% higher than planned. This is storing up environmental problems for Durham.

"This Council's record on waste management and combating climate change is very poor and more must be done to tackle the issue.

"At present the Council is only rated as a '1' on a scale of 0 to 4 [with 4 being best] on its environmental performance. This is a clear indication that their performance in this vital area is poor..

"The new council was supposed to deliver better services but things seem to be getting worse. The Labour group that run the council need to make significant improvements to recycling and in combating climate change to protect the environment in our City and County. It is time that they told us how they are going to do this and stop polluting the county by putting too much waste into landfill."