Stratford-on-Avon District Council achieved the highest recycling rate of any local authority in England last year, Defra data reveals.
Official statistics from the Department for Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs (Defra) show a striking disparity in household recycling rates across English councils, with performance ranging from 17.0% to 63.9%.
Stratford-on-Avon District Council has been revealed as the highest performing local authority, achieving a 63.9% recycling rate in 2024/25.
With a 63.2% recycling rate, Milton Keynes Council was the second-best performing council in England. While Three Rivers District Council was not far behind with a 61.1% recycling rate.
The worst performing councils were Tower Hamlets LB (17.0%), Liverpool City Council (17.9%), and Birmingham City Council (20.3%).
The household recycling rate in England remained stagnant, dropping 0.2% from 44% in 2023 to 43.8% in 2024.
Councils disposed of 1,375 tonnes of waste via landfill in 2024/25, a 0.1% increase from the previous year. 5.5% of all local authority waste (1.4 million tonnes) was disposed of via landfill in 2024/25, which was unchanged from 2023/24.
Commenting on the statistics, David Gudgeon, Head of External Affairs at Reconomy Connect, said recycling rates had stagnated.
“One of the key issues behind these stagnant rates has been the lack of consistency in recycling collections between local authorities, which has caused confusion for households and contributed to higher contamination levels and reduced recycling quality,” Gudgeon said.
“These underwhelming rates reinforce the importance of Simpler Recycling legislation for Households in England, which came into effect today to standardise recycling collections and make recycling easier to understand and follow.”
Simpler Recycling rules that mandate the separate collection of different waste streams came into force for households across England on 31 March.
The rules mean local authorities in England must collect food and garden waste, paper and card, dry recyclable materials, and residual waste separately from households.