The amount of waste people are putting in their black bins in Tendring has fallen sharply - as more people take to recycling.

Tendring District Council (TDC) introduced a new recycling system last year.

As such, the recycling rate for the area was 36.6% in 2019/20, up from 27.4% the previous year.

It produced 9,198 tonnes of general recycling in 2019/20, up from 8,509 the year before.

Black bag or bin waste dropped by a fifth - in 2018-19 each household on average threw away just over half a tonne of rubbish (512kg), but last year this dropped to 401kg.

The rise could have been even more - the council’s new recycling system did not come in until mid-way through the year, and for the month the new service was in place the recycling rate was 39.8%.

The biggest increase came in food and garden waste, which rose by 2,210 tonnes – from 5,013 to 7,223 tonnes.

Michael Talbot, the council’s cabinet member for environment, said: “We were confident that our new waste service would deliver improved recycling rates, and it is pleasing to see that the initial data has been borne out in the final figures.

“I am hopeful that this improvement is a trend which will continue going forward.”