In the year that it was awarded the largest ever waste and recycling contract to a community organisation, ECT has reported a £5.75 million increase in turnover.

The organisation, which offers a range of public services including community transport and healthcare, claims in its annual report that it is now earning just over £29 million a year.

ECT also reveals that it has more than doubled its workforce to 900 in the past 12 months, stating that it has "enjoyed another year of unparalleled growth."

The group, formerly known as Ealing Community Transport, was awarded a major waste contract with the London Borough of Ealing earlier this year. In his forward to the annual report, MD Andy Bond said: "At £10 million plus, this is the largest waste management contract ever awarded to a social enterprise.

"It was a crucial step change in ECT's capacity, adding refuse collection and street cleansing to our regular portfolio of recycling activities," he added.

The report states that the organisation, which celebrates its 25-year anniversary this year, now has the capacity to bid for and deliver integrated waste management contracts.

ECT also claims a bit of Barnet's compulsory recycling scheme success in the report, reminding that it provides a free black box to every householder and collects "a wide range of recycleable materials every week".

Somerset

There is also mention of the organisation's work with Somerset's Waste Partnership, where ECT is working with the Partnership as it introduces collections of kitchen waste. About 150,000 households are in the process of receiving a weekly collection of dry recycling and kitchen waste with an alternate weekly refuse service.

Mr Bond said: "This combined weekly collection is driving up the recycled tonnage and driving down quantities going to landfill. The Somerset Waste Partnership is on target to exceed a recycling rate of 45%. We are helping to achieve one of the biggest recycling rates in the country."

Somerset's county council's recycling manager Paul Chiplen said that recycling was high in the area, but he said. "We are on 32% at the moment and our own aim is to reach 40% by 2006, it's ambitious but you have to aim high.