News & Media > Environmental Services
11:08:2010
Flying start in North Yorkshire
Under the contract which went live on 1 April 2010, May Gurney is responsible for management of North Yorkshire County Council's Household Waste Recycling Centres (HWRCs), and has made a firm commitment to increase recycling by collecting a wider range of materials and improving customer service.
Thanks to efforts of residents, around 70% of the waste received at the county's HRWCs is currently recycled or composted. This is an excellent performance but under the new contract May Gurney is looking to increase recycling opportunities to enable almost three-quarters of waste to be reused.
Improvements already introduced by May Gurney include better signage to make recycling even easier, and more opportunities to donate items such as furniture, books, CDs and other materials for reuse by charities and voluntary groups.
Sarah Chapman, regional operations director for May Gurney Environmental Services, said: “We successfully mobilised 17 HWRCs across the largest county in England, starting the day before the busiest time in the HWRC calendar – Easter weekend. This was a major challenge involving a 25-strong mobilisation team from across May Gurney Environmental Services.
“North Yorkshire County Council has stated that it has been impressed with the transition and the way that we mobilised for the start date.
“During the transition period there were very few complaints or problems and customer feedback since then has been very good, with 98.5% of people using the HWRCs either ‘satisfied' or ‘very satisfied'.
“This is great credit to the recycling advisors who work at the site – they are delivering an exceptional level of customer service.”
