Household Waste Recycled 30 July 2012
More household waste sent for recycling, less to landfill
The provisional Northern Ireland Local Authority Collected Municipal Waste Management Statistics January – March 2012 have been published.
The report shows that just over 38% of household waste was sent for recycling or composting in the first three months of 2012. This was an improvement of just over four percentage points on the 34% of household waste sent for recycling or composting during the same period last year. This improvement was the result of a number of factors. More household waste was sent for both dry recycling and composting, and there was a reduction in the overall amount of household waste collected.
As a greater proportion of household waste is recycled or composted, the proportion sent to landfill continues to decrease. Between January and March 2012, just over 57% of household waste was sent to landfill. This was just over five percentage points lower than the same period last year.
The data in this report are based on returns made to WasteDataFlow by district councils, within two months of the end of each quarter. WasteDataFlow is a web based system, used by all UK local authorities to report local authority collected municipal waste.
Key points for January to March 2012 are:
Local Authority Collected Municipal Waste
A total of 223,976 tonnes of local authority collected municipal waste were collected in Northern Ireland, a decrease of just over 4% on the same period last year.
Just over 36% of local authority collected municipal waste was sent for recycling and composting. This was an improvement compared to the same period last year when just over 32% was recycled or composted.
The percentage of local authority collected municipal waste sent to landfill was just less than 59%. This was also an improvement compared to the same period last year when just less than 64% was sent to landfill.
Green waste accounted for more than a third of all waste (35%), which combined with paper (27%) and other recycled waste (24%) accounted for the majority of material collected for recycling. The remaining 14% was glass, electrical goods or cans.
Household Waste
Local authority collected municipal waste includes household waste and waste collected from non–household sources. Of all local authority collected municipal waste in Northern Ireland, 87% was household waste and 13% was non–household waste.
A total of 194,472 tonnes of household waste were collected in Northern Ireland, a decrease of 6% on the same period last year.
The percentage of household waste recycled or composted was just over 38%. This was an improvement on the 34% from the corresponding period the previous year. Of all household waste collected just under 25% was recycled and just over 13% was composted.
Just over 57% of household waste was sent to landfill, an improvement on the rate of just over 62% sent to landfill during the same period in 2011.
Some of the data in this report are seasonal, particularly the quantities of waste sent for composting. This is why comparisons are made with the appropriate quarter from the previous year, rather than with the most recent quarter. The January to March quarter, along with October to December, tends to have lesser quantities of household waste sent for composting as a result of less garden waste during the winter months.
Biodegradable Local Authority Collected Municipal Waste
The Landfill Allowance Scheme places a statutory responsibility on district councils to landfill no more than the quantity of biodegradable local authority collected municipal waste for which they have allowances. The allocation for 2011/12 is 465,950 tonnes, which is less than the 2010/11 allocation (469,937 tonnes).
In the period January to March 2012, a total of 78,180 tonnes of biodegradable local authority collected municipal waste were sent to landfill, which equates to almost 17% of the annual allocation. This was an improvement compared to the same period last year, when almost 19% of last year’s allocation was sent to landfill.
In the year, two–thirds (67%) of the annual allocation has been used. However this is subject to change pending the potential transfer of allowances and further validation work ahead of the annual report. This shows an improvement compared to last year when three–quarters (75%) of the annual allocation was used.
