ARE WE WINNING WAR ON WASTE? Council to urge people to cut amount of rubbish they are sending to landfill.

Byline: David James 

ARE you a green champion or a black-bag slacker? We can reveal today the areas of Cardiff that have taken the recycling revolution to heart and those who are still addicted to landfill.

Figures obtained by the Echo on the first anniversary of the introduction of the city's food scraps composting scheme on October 10 last year provide a ward-by-ward ranking of recycling performance. The new system has boosted Cardiff's recycling performance to hit the city's 40% target for recycling a year early.

It has also seen the city nominated for a UK-wide award for best community recycling initiative.

But the statistics show inner-city wards on bag collection routes are still recycling a fraction of the amount of families in wealthier areas on the outskirts of the city who have been given wheelie bins.

There are six wards in Cardiff that put less than half as much of their leftover food, waste plastic, paper, glass and tins out for composting and re-use than people do in Lisvane.

Families in the leafy suburb in the north of the city recycled an astonishing 70% of their waste between April 1 and August 31.

In comparison, people on Adamsdown's streets recorded an average of just 24%.

Coun Margaret Jones, the city's environment chief, said the council is launching an advertising campaign over the coming months to try to increase use of the food waste recycling system.

It will see advertisements for the scheme plastered on the sides of buses, radio advertising and messages displayed on big screens in the city centre.

Coun Jones said: "The scheme is being used by the majority of residents and the council will continue to engage with areas where recycling rates are low to explain the importance of recycling and the financial context if recycling and composting rates are not met."

Over the coming years, local authorities in South Wales face further challenging targets to increase their recycling, which will force councils to encourage all homes to recycle food scraps.

By 2012/13, the city will be expected to hit a total recycling figure of 52% - of which 12% should be food waste.

Three years on, that is expected to have risen to 58% and by 2019/20, the council will be expected to recycle 64% of its waste, of which 16% should be food waste.

Council officials said that encouraging more businesses to use recycling facilities would be crucial to hitting the targets. Rubbish from businesses accounts for 35% of the city's waste.

So far this year companies have only recycled 24% of their waste and officers urged businesses to contact Lamby Way to find out about cheaper recycling rates.

One of the other challenges for council officers is to expand the wheelie-bin waste collection scheme to all wards in the city.

Officers' long-term plan is to move all homes in the capital with an area of garden fronting the street from bag collection routes to wheelie bins.

Some 13,000 homes will be given the bins in the latest roll out of the scheme this winter but funding has not been confirmed for extending wheelie bins to the last remaining wards, Canton, Adamsdown, Penylan and Roath.

Coun Jones said the city would continue to expand its recycling facilities to meet the challenges ahead.

She said: "Cardiff will continue to expand our recycling facilities, so that we can continue in our efforts to meet the challenging targets ahead of us."

Hitting recycling target, thanks to Derbyshire CARDIFF may be hitting its recycling targets - but it is still sending food scraps 150 miles by lorry to Derbyshire.

For the past 12 months, articulated lorries have been taking hundreds of tonnes of food scraps from Cardiff to the Vital Earth composting facility every day.

When the Echo revealed the arrangement earlier this year, there was outcry from green groups at the environmental damage being done by the extra loads being transported on the UK's haulage network.

Between April and June alone, Cardiff produced a total of 47,000 tonnes of waste.

The city's 15% food waste and composting target alone would have seen more than 7,000 tonnes of waste driven the 150 miles to Derbyshire over that time.

Officers had initially planned to build an equivalent facility, which composts food and green waste together in sealed containers, at Lamby Way. They have now changed their minds.

Despite initially rejecting more expensive anaerobic digestion technology, arguing it did not offer value for money, officers are now reconsidering the system, which generates electricity from composting food waste.

A tendering process has been launched in which private companies are putting in bids to build either an anaerobic digestion facility or an in-vessel composter in Cardiff.

Senior officers are also considering the possibility of working with other local authorities in the region on the project.