London: Defra has published the second provisional set of estimates from the Department's 2007/8 survey of municipal waste in England, which incorporate the second quarter of the financial year (July to September 2007).
Attempting to minimise the effects of seasonal fluctuations, the Department has made comparisons between the year April 2006 to March 2007 and the year October 2006 to September 2007.
Total municipal waste arising has marginally decreased from 29.1 million tonnes to 29.0 million tonnes, or around 0.3%. Household waste which is the major component of municipal waste also showed a marginal decrease from 25.8 to 25.7 million tonnes.
However significantly less waste was sent to landfill, decreasing from 16.9 to 16.1 million tonnes.
There was an increase in the household recycling and composting rate, from 30.9% (April 2006 and March 2007) to 33.2% (October 2006 and September 2007). This resulted in a reduction in the average residual household waste per head from 353kg per head between April 2006 and March 2007 to 340 kg per head between October 2006 and September 2007.
Defra says that the data is provisional as not all returns have completed full validation and returns to WasteDataFlow can be revised by local authorities during the scheme year (situation at 31 March when data downloaded. The Department points out that there are also seasonal effects on waste arisings and management which means care needs to be taken when assessing trends.
Final figures for the financial year 2007-08 will be released in the annual National Statistics release in November 2008.
All 394 local authorities submitted data to the WasteDataFlow system but returns from 7 local authorities had not completed validation for the statistical release by Defra. The Department says that the unvalidated returns have only a small overall impact on the statistics, accounting for only 1% of the estimated total municipal waste.
Household and municipal waste
Household waste includes domestic refuse collection rounds, other household collections such as bulky waste collections, waste from services such as 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.
Municipal waste includes household waste, but also 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.
Further information
The tables showing summary estimates, by region, and a more detailed description of the data and methodology can be found in a statistical note on the Defra website at: http://www.defra.gov.uk/environment/statistics/wastats/index.htm .
Information on individual local authorities can be obtained from WasteDataFlow by registering for public access and running summary reports.