Over 80% of households in Northern Ireland say they are happy with how their council has asked them to recycle, according to a national poll.
In council areas where household recyclables, such as plastic, paper, card, tins and cardboard, can become mixed with glass in the same container, 82% of householders reported that they were happy with how their council has asked them to recycle, with Derry and Strabane Council’s householders being most content, at 88%.
The research was carried out by LucidTalk and was commissioned by Re-Gen Waste Ltd. Carried out over 5 days, the survey took place from 14th March to 18 March 2022.
The project targeted the established Northern Ireland LucidTalk online Opinion Panel (13,816 members) which they say is balanced by gender, age group, area of residence, and community background, to be demographically representative of Northern Ireland.
The survey took place across all 11 council areas and the results showed that Mid and East Antrim Council’s householders were least happy (61%) with their Council’s recycling collection method, followed closely by Belfast City Council (65%).
81% of households say they try to recycle everything they can.
Of the respondents who said they weren’t happy with how their council has asked them to recycle, 23% rated their recycling container lids and boxes blowing away in windy weather as the top negative factor.
Managing Director of Re-Gen Waste Ltd, Joseph Doherty, said: “Simplicity and convenience continue to be the most significant factors in determining the success rate of householder recycling.
“It is heartening to see more householders are saying recycling is very or somewhat important to them (95%) and that eight out of 10 people say that they try to recycle everything.”
When asked for comments on any negative issues with their recycling service in the survey, 102 out of the 163 respondents from Belfast households complained about the lack of a glass recycling service.
“In Belfast, 22% of respondents said they put their glass in their municipal waste bin rather than recycle it, an increase of 2% since 2019. This council area does not offer a fully commingled glass recycling service.”
“… if we provide householders with a recycling service that allows them to put glass into their recycling bins, the volume of glass in their black bins and therefore landfill decreases dramatically.”