London: Defra released today, its revised estimates from the 2006/7 survey of municipal waste showing that English local authorities have achieved a respectable 31% for recycling and composting of municipal and household wastes.
In addition there have been reductions in the landfilling of municipal and household wastes, though the overall quantity of wastes has increased.
North Kesteven once again tops the recycling and composting league with an excellent 55% followed by South Shropshire (53.2) and Rushcliffe (52.2).
Mid Suffolk District Council topped the dry recycling league, which excludes composting, with a huge 34.2%, followed by Chichester (32.6) and Chiltern (32.4).
South Somerset had the lowest residual waste per head at 180 kgs.
Slight adjustments have been made for London from the first estimates issued earlier this month.
Compost windrow in North Yorkshire
Municipal wastes
The total amount of collected municipal waste has increased to an estimated 29.1 million tonnes in England in 2006/07 compared to 28.7 million tonnes in 2005/06 (up 1.4%). However the average annual increase in municipal waste from 2001/02 to 2006/07 was only 0.2 per cent.
12.2 million tonnes (41.8%) of the total amount was recovered through recycling, composting, energy production and fuel manufacture during the year representing a rise from 10.7 million tonnes (37.2%) in 2005/06.
The combined recycling and composting rate for municipal waste increased from 27.1 per cent in 2005/06 to 30.7 per cent in 2006/07 and the proportion of waste incinerated with energy recovery increased from 10 per cent in 2005/06 to 11 per cent in 2006/07.
The proportion of municipal waste being disposed of in landfill has continued to decrease from 62% (17.9 million) in 2005/06 to 58% (16.9 million) in 2006/07.
Municipal waste comes under the control of local authorities and includes household waste and other wastes collected by a waste collection authority or its agents, such as municipal parks and gardens waste, beach cleansing waste, commercial or industrial waste, and waste resulting from the clearance of fly-tipped materials together with waste from household waste (civic amenity) sites.
Defra indicates that the amount of waste sent for reuse, recycling and composting is that which is accepted by the reprocessor and, as such it excludes any recycling rejects that occur during collection, sorting or further treatment. Waste diverted for recycling from the residual stream by further processing is included in the recycling tonnages, e.g residual waste subjected to recovery through a mechanical biological treatment (MBT) facility.
Household waste and recycling
Household waste includes household refuse collection rounds, other household collections such as bulky waste collections, litter collections, waste from civic amenity sites and wastes separately collected for recycling or composting through bring/drop off schemes, kerbside schemes and at civic amenity sites.
In 2006/07, household sources accounted for 88.4 per cent of municipal waste, 25.8 million tonnes, which equates to around 512 kg of household waste per person per annum.
Click on the image below for a chart of English household waste and recycling per capita (Chart: Defra - Crown © 2007).
Household waste increased by just over 1.1 per cent in 2006/7, from 25.5 million tonnes in 2005/06 to 25.8 million tonnes in 2006/07. The average annual change in total household waste over the last five years is 0.3 per cent.
The combined recycling and composting rate has continued its rise from 26.7 in 2005/06 to 30.95 per cent in 2006/07 and the 4.2% approx increase is the same as the growth rate achieved last year.
However in absolute terms the amount of household waste sent for recycling or composting has increased by a massive 17 per cent, from 6.8 million tonnes in 2005/06 to just under 8.0 million tonnes in 2006/07.
Waste Strategy 2007 for England set out targets for the management of municipal and household waste which included a target to recycle or compost at least 40 per cent of household waste by 2010. Current figures show the country to be well on the way to the target though increases are likely to become more difficult to achieve as the rate gets higher.
The amount of household waste not re-used, recycled or composted was 17.8 million tonnes, a decrease of 4.3 per cent from 2005/6. This equates to around 352kg per person of collected residual household waste.
For 2006/7, there was again a 100% response rate to WasteDataFlow.
Further information
The municipal waste management statistics issued can be found at
http://www.defra.gov.uk/environment/statistics/wastats/bulletin07.htm .