Official calendar year figures for England’s waste collection and recycling rate in 2016-17 have been published by Defra, showing the country’s local authority collected recycling has increased 1%, with the help of incinerator bottom ash (IBA) metal.
The official England waste from households recycling rate for 2016 was 44.9%. This rate includes for the first time the percentage of metal recovered and recycled from waste which has been through incineration.
For 2016, this raises the waste from households recycling rate by around 0.7 percentage points. Excluding IBA metal would give a recycling rate of 44.2% for 2016, up slightly from 43.9% in 2015.
Total “waste from households” in England increased by 2.5% in 2016 to 22.8m tonnes from 22.2m tonnes in 2015. This is equivalent to 412kg per person, up from 406kg per person in 2015 an increase of 1.6%.
Residual waste treated increased by 1.3% to 12.5m tonnes in 2016 from 12.4m tonnes in 2015. Recycled waste in England rose to 10.2m tonnes in 2016 from 9.8m tonnes in 2015, an increase of 3.8%.
For 2016, this raises the waste from households recycling rate by around 0.7 percentage points. Excluding IBA metal would give a recycling rate of 44.2% for 2016, up slightly from 43.9% in 2015.
Dry recycling volumes rose to 6.0m tonnes in 2016 an increase of 3.7% from 5.8m tonnes in 2015. Other organic waste increased by 3.1% to 3.8m tonnes from 3.7m tonnes in 2015. Separate food waste collected for recycling increased by 15 .0% in 2016 to 353 thousand tonnes from 307 thousand tonnes in 2015.
Total local authority managed waste in 2016/17 was 26.3m tonnes, an increase of 0.7% from 26.1m tonnes in 2015/16.
Waste sent to landfill decreased by 1.0m tonnes to 4.1m tonnes in 2016/17, equivalent to around 16% of all local authority waste. The majority, 3.2m tonnes, was sent direct to landfill.
Waste sent for incineration rose to 10.2m tonnes, an increase of 0.9m tonnes in 2016/17, with around 7.1m tonnes being sent direct. Although exact like for like comparisons cannot be made on the amount of waste now being incinerated due to changes in the extent of reporting, the tonnage has iincreased sharply and has more than tripled since 2010/11. In 2016/17, 39% of all local authority waste was sent to incineration.