CHRISTCHURCH residents have doubled their recycling rates following the start of a new wheelie bin collection service, early results suggest.

The Dorset Waste Partnership has produced its first quarterly waste statistics since it launched the ‘Recycle for Dorset’ service on October 1 last year.

They show a big rise in recycling as well as a reduction in rubbish sent to landfill in the three months following the scheme’s introduction compared with the year before.

In Christchurch, the recycling rate rose from 34 per cent to 62 per cent and in East Dorset, where only part of the district changed to the new service on October 29, the recycling rate increased from 43 per cent to 49 per cent.

The amount of rubbish sent to landfill also decreased by 2,100 tonnes or 28 per cent.

Cllr Hilary Cox, chair of the Dorset Waste Partnership joint committee, said: “Changing collections can be tough to get used to but people have adapted and their efforts to sort their materials appear to be paying off.”

And Steve Burdis, director of the Dorset Waste Partnership, said: “If this trend continues, we will be well on our way to achieving our aim of recycling more than 65 per cent of Dorset’s waste by 2016.”