THE county council's recycling centres will be open later from next week.

The centres will be open until 8pm on Thursdays until September as the days become longer. They all open at 8am.

There are seven centres across Oxfordshire, the closest to Oxford being Redbridge centre in Old Abingdon Road. They all accept a wide range of materials which can be reused, recycling or disposed of.

Oxfordshire has one of the highest recycling rates of any county council in the country. It recycles about 57 per cent of all its waste – but there is room for improvement: about 80 per cent of all products could be fully recycled.

In 2011, the county council agreed to a 25-year deal for residual waste treatment with Viridor, in an attempt to curb costs from using landfill.

A £200m energy recovery facility in Ardley treats about 300,000 tonnes of waste a year. The council said that has meant about 95 per cent of the county's waste is kept away from landfill.

The use of the facility generates electricity for about 38,000 homes, the council said.

Its other recycling centres are: Ardley Fields, in Brackley Road, Ardley; Alkerton, near Banbury; Dix Pit, in Stanton Harcourt; Drayton, in Steventon Road, near Abingdon; Oakley Wood, in Old Icknield Way, near Wallingford; and Stanford in the Vale, in Faringdon.