Kingston Council has issued a ‘thank you’ to residents for their efforts in increasing the amount of waste being recycled.

The borough’s recycling rate reached an impressive 45.8 per cent last year, and is set to increase to 47 per cent this year.

The blue wheelie bin service began in February 2016, reducing the amount of waste going to landfill, benefitting the environment and also saving the council money.

In the first year of the new service an additional 430 tonnes of paper and card was collected, as well as increased amounts of plastic, cans, glass and garden waste.

An extra 157 tonnes of food waste has also been recycled.

In June the council will be launching its recycling scheme ‘Local Green Points’ for the borough’s 20,000 flats, along with providing new recycling bins for paper, card and cardboard, and tins, glass and cartons.

A Kingston Council spokesperson said: “It is great that Kingston continues to be one of London’s top performing boroughs for recycling. We are determined to build on this success and with the introduction of the new flats recycling service and recycling rewards scheme due to start this summer, we expect to see an increase in recycling rates within the next year.”

For more information or to sign up to the garden waste collection service visit kingston.gov.uk/recycling.