GREEN campaigners have criticised local authorities after new figures revealed a worsening in recycling rates.

After years of increases the amount of waste being recycled has now plateaued and in some cases started to decline.

A Hampshire campaign group has criticised the county council and Winchester City Council for their worsening rates and said a revolution is needed in how it handles waste.

Hampshire was once one of the best councils in the country but government figures have shown the county is way down in the UK recycling league table and only recycles 41% of its waste.

James Miller, of Winchester Action on Climate Change (WinACC), said Winchester was also getting worse.

Mr Miller said: “Winchester has a great deal to be proud of, its unrivalled history, great sense of community, excellent schools, the list goes on and on. That’s why it came as a great shock to me when I learnt that one thing we certainly can’t be proud of is the manner in which we manage our waste. In 2015 we managed to recycle a meagre 35%. We’re in the bottom 20% of councils in England.

“It matters a great deal. Waste is one of the most significant contributors to climate change, contributing a similar amount of carbon as aviation.”

He added: “Many councils across the UK have been recycling more types of waste for years now. Hampshire never evolved, offering the same recycling service as it did 20 years ago. So, while many councils have been able to double or even triple recycling we have achieved minimal gains.

“Winchester City Council and Hampshire County Council urgently need to work together to bring about a revolution in recycling, although budgets are already stretched it has been proven that such schemes can often be profitable by re-arranging existing services.”

Department of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) show the county does very badly. Winchester is 278th out of 351 councils although it is even worse in other parts of the county with the New Forest 314th, Southampton 326th. The best English council was South Oxfordshire at 66%.

Mr Miller said: “They collect a wider variety of plastics, food waste and glass. They also have robust enforcement to ensure residents are using bins correctly.”

Richard Bisset, New Forest District Council’s waste and transport manager said: “We are performing well within the group of Hampshire local authorities. All Hampshire councils collect paper, card, cans, tins, aerosols and plastic bottles for recycling. And we introduced a successful household glass recycling service in 2013 to make it easier for residents to recycle their glass bottles and jars."

On the plus side Hampshire is in the top five English shire counties for landfill diversion, sending less than 10 per cent of the county’s rubbish to landfill.

Instead, black bags are sent to one of three energy recovery facilities in Hampshire where they are safely incinerated to generate enough energy to power 53,000 homes.

According to Eurostat the UK is eighth in Europe for recycling at 46%, the top four countries being Germany at 65, Austria at 62 and Netherlands at 50.

A spokeswoman from Winchester City Council said: “The recycling rate in Winchester has plateaued in recent years, despite residents best efforts to recycle. The council provides a recycling service enabling residents to recycling 35% of their waste on a weekly basis. However changes to the make-up of rubbish, including changing behaviours like people buying less paper products and improvements in manufacturing making ‘recycled’ products lighter, have led to this plateau.

“The council launched a new communications message last year, aiming at getting residents to ‘Recycle Right’. This was distributed to all residents in a bid to reduce the amount of wrong items in the bin, and recycle the correct ones. This theme will continue this year via a range of communications media to get the message across. The council is working hard with the county to include more recycled items in the bin, however the results of this work is a year or two away.”

Hampshire County Council was asked for a response but has not done so.