The official England ‘waste from households’ recycling rate has been published by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), revealing a 0.1 percentage point increase for 2021, up from 44.0 percent in 2020.
The total amount of waste recycled increased, however. In 2021, it was 10.2 million tonnes, up from 9.9 million tonnes in 2020 –– an increase of 2.7 percent.
The amount of dry material recycled in 2021 was 6.0 million tonnes up by 0.1 million tonnes from 2020, an increase of 1.7 percent.
The tonnage of separately collected food waste sent for recycling was 512 thousand tonnes, an increase of 5.7 percent from 485 thousand tonnes in 2020. ‘Other organic’ waste sent for recycling was 3.7 million tonnes, an increase of 139 thousand tonnes or 3.9 percent on 2020.
In 2021, total ‘waste from households’ increased to 23.1 million tonnes from 2020 when it was 22.6 million tonnes. This is equivalent to 409 kg per person, up from 399 kg per person in 2020, an increase of 2.4 percent.
The amount of residual waste treated was 12.8 million tonnes, up from 12.6 million tonnes in 2020, an increase of 2.0 percent.
When we keep doing the same thing, we should expect largely the same results
The rolling 12-month ‘waste from households’ recycling rate was 44.1 per cent at the end of March 2022. This is an increase of 0.3 percentage points compared with the previous 12-month period. This figure includes Incinerator Bottom Ash (IBA) metal, which added approximately 1.0 percentage points to the recycling rate in 2021. This was unchanged from 2020.
In 2021/22, total local authority managed waste increased by 0.9 percent to 26.1 million tonnes; and 8.1 percent of all local authority waste (2.1 million tonnes) was disposed of via landfill in 2021/22 –– up by 0.1 million tonnes (4.6 percent) from 2020/21.
Waste sent for incineration decreased by 0.1 million tonnes (0.6 percent) to 12.4 million tonnes in 2021/22 compared to 2020/21. It was the disposal method used for 47.4 per cent of all local authority waste.
Dr Adam Read, Chief External Affairs and Sustainability Officer for SUEZ recycling and recovery UK, commented on the figures: “Today’s statistics on household waste and recycling will come as no surprise to those of us working in the sector, who have seen the trends reflected in our own data in real time.
The figures though reinforce the need for the new funding from producers through EPR and government in the form of new burdens to implement food waste collections.
“When we keep doing the same thing, we should expect largely the same results – we can only expect to see significant improvements to household recycling rates when the detail of the Government’s policy reforms is made clear, giving confidence to local authorities to plan service change and to the private sector to invest in new infrastructure.”
CIWM’s Policy and External Affairs Director, Lee Marshall said, “Given the backdrop of Covid and EU exit, along with political instability, local authorities have done well to maintain services and keep recycling rates at these levels. The fact food waste and dry recycling tonnages continue to rise is encouraging but there is a worry that overall waste production is also up, although the impacts of Covid on this may not be fully understood yet.
“The figures though reinforce the need for the new funding from producers through EPR and government in the form of new burdens to implement food waste collections. Without this funding injection we are not likely to see the next step change in recycling rates in England so the sooner we have the details on consistent collections and bottom out the remaining issues surrounding EPR the sooner we can get new and improved services in place.”
