STROUD District Council has added to its recycling credentials by scooping an award for cutting the amount of waste it sends to landfill.

The accolade follows the council being identified by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) as the highest performing council for recycling in the south west, and with residents throwing away the least amount of residual waste in England.

Defra figures show that Stroud district residents lead the way in England, putting out an average of just 258.6kg of residual waste per household in 2017/18 and achieved a 61.2 per cent household recycling rate – up a massive 15.7 per cent on the previous year.

A cross party group of councillors, plus council and Ubico staff picked up the trophy at the National Recycling Awards ceremony.

Cllr Simon Pickering, Stroud District Council’s Environment Committee chair said: “It’s excellent to get national recognition of the careful planning, of the new collection scheme, the uptake by of citizens and most of all the hard working crews who really are the doctors of the earth clearing up all our waste.

"We can build on this to reduce our carbon emissions further by cutting the amount of waste we produce and maximising recycling.”

Cllr Doina Cornell, leader of Stroud District Council added: “It’s thanks to the unanimous support from councillors from every political party as well as the widespread adoption by the residents in the district that has made our recycling scheme such a success.

"This shows how much we can achieve when we all work together.”

Gareth Edmundson, managing director of Ubico said: “As a company owned by Stroud District Council and six other local authorities our success is based on a strong partnership between Ubico and our shareholders.

"We’re now looking forward to helping Stroud District Council reduce residual waste further, increase recycling and achieve their target of becoming a Carbon Neutral District by 2030.”

The MRW National Recycling Awards bring together recycling and waste management professionals to recognise and celebrate best practice and innovation in recycling and waste management.

Corin Williams, Editor of MRW said: “There has been intense public scrutiny of our sector recently, and there is quite rightly a lot of concern out there about where our waste ends up.

"The MRW National Recycling Award 2019 winners show our industry has the inspiration, expertise and enthusiasm to meet these challenges and lead from the front.”

Stroud District Council and Ubico were shortlisted for a second NRA award for `Introduction of Food Waste Collections.’

SDC stopped outsourcing its waste and recycling service in 2016 and introduced a compostable food waste collection to its recyclable and residual waste collections with Ubico, in which Stroud District Council is a shareholder.