RESIDENTS in west Cheshire are top of the class in England when it comes to recycling their waste.

Latest figures show that householders across the borough are the best in the country at reducing carbon emissions by sorting out their waste.

It is the second year running that the area has saved the most CO2 to help the environment.

When products are recycled, it avoids the need to extract and process new raw material thereby reducing carbon emissions.

Cllr Karen Shore, cabinet member for environment, said: “This achievement is the latest in a series of successes for our recycling collection services and proves the recycling efforts of our residents are helping to improve the environment.

“The council were also overall winners for England, Northern Ireland and Wales in 2014/15.

"This continued period of success shows that residents continue to support recycling across the borough. The effort that residents and our staff make to separate waste at source really pays dividends when it comes to producing carbon savings.”

Eunomia Research and Consulting Ltd works out the amount of carbon dioxide emissions released across the country and lists them by borough in a league table: The Carbon Index.

Eunomia uses the amount of each material that a council collects for recycling to calculate how much carbon is saved.

Its recycling carbon index 2016/17 found Cheshire West and Chester Council’s recycling collection services to be the most effective in reducing carbon dioxide emissions in the country.

Cheshire West and Chester saved a total of 111kg of CO2 per person in the area in 2016/17, the latest year for which figures are available.

Eunomia director Joe Papineschi said: “I’d like to congratulate Cheshire West and Chester Council on their sustained excellent recycling performance.

"Recycling has an important contribution to make to the UK’s efforts on climate change, and just looking at recycling rates doesn’t tell you the whole story.

"Our recycling carbon index helps authorities to see the types of recycling that have the greatest impact, and to identify new opportunities as well as highlighting successes so far. It also helps the public understand the reasons why recycling is so important.”