Household recycling rate stalls

The latest figures reveal that for the first time since 2009/10, the household dry recycling and composting rate has failed to show any quarter on quarter increase with the rate remaining at just below 46%.

Previous improvements in this quarter have been mainly driven by an increasing proportion of household waste being composted but this proportion has remained static at around 25% since last year.

Despite this, the tonnage of household waste going to landfill has fallen to below 89 thousand tonnes, down 14% on last year (103 thousand tonnes).

This equates to only 40%, or two out of every five tonnes, of household waste now being sent to landfill - an improvement of almost seven percentage points on the corresponding quarter last year. The reduction, however, has been largely achieved through an increasing proportion of such waste being diverted for energy recovery rather than by any further improvement to the household recycling and composting rate.

The data in this report are based on returns made to WasteDataFlow, which is a web based system, used by all UK local authorities to report LAC municipal waste.

Northern Ireland is split into three waste management groups:

· arc21 - Antrim, Ards, Ballymena, Belfast, Carrickfergus, Castlereagh, Down, Larne, Lisburn, Newtownabbey, North Down.

· North West Regional Waste Management Group (NWRWMG) - Ballymoney, Coleraine, Derry, Limavady, Magherafelt, Moyle, Strabane.

· Southern Waste Management Partnership (SWaMP2008) - Armagh, Banbridge, Cookstown, Craigavon, Dungannon, Fermanagh, Newry and Mourne, Omagh.