The latest provisional figures from the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) show that between July and September 2012 (the second quarter of the year 2012/13), 47 per cent, or 2.9 million tonnes, of household waste in England was recycled, reused or composted, up two per cent from the same period the year before. This brings the recycling, composting and reuse rate for the year 2012/13 up to 44 per cent.

Defra estimates that in quarter two (Q2) 6.2 million tonnes of household waste were produced, an increase of three per cent on the same period in the previous year. The reasoning behind the increase has not been accounted for.

Further, it suggests that each person in England generated approximately 117 kilogrammes (kgs) of household waste in Q2, recycling 54 kgs of that figure.

This is in line with a continuing rise in the amount of household waste being recycled. Over the past five years, the amount of household waste being recycled, composted or reused has increased by 17 per cent, as ‘black bag’ waste has dropped by 25 per cent.

And although 2.3 million tonnes of local authority waste was sent to landfill in Q2 of 2012/13, the amount of waste going to landfill over the last five years has almost halved, down 45 per cent. According to Defra, increasing levels of landfill tax ‘continues to be the main driver for local authorities to reduce waste to landfill’.

A Defra spokesperson said: “Nearly half of all household waste is now recycled. This is good news for both the environment and the economy.”

Incineration up 60 per cent in five years

However, Defra also revealed that 1.4 million tonnes of waste were sent for energy recovery by incineration, an increase of 14 per cent from the same point in 2011/12. The last five years have seen a huge increase in the role played by energy from waste facilities, with the level of waste being incinerated increasing by 60 per cent.

Defra states that: ‘Generating energy from waste by incineration is preferable to landfill, although recycling and reuse are preferable to both’.

The UK's reliance on energy-from-waste facilities in dealing with residual waste remains a contentious issue however, with opponents claiming facilities often greatly overestimate the amount of material available to be incinerated, leading to overcapacity.

Indeed, GAIA (the Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives), has warned that the EU’s increasing incineration capacity could damage recycling rates, while Eunomia released a report in 2012 that warned that without any change in residual waste quantities, by 2015/16, there would be treatment ‘overcapacity of 6.9 million tonnes per annum’.

Figures ‘likely to be overestimates’

Defra has warned that the provisional figures are liable to a degree of error, as the levels of waste sent for recycling, composting or reuse do not include anything that is rejected during collection, sorting or further treatment.

Indeed, writing in its Quality Action Plan, published in February 2013, Defra advised that current recycling rates reported to WasteDataFlow are ‘likely to be overestimates as many do not account for material rejected by the MRF during the sorting process in a robust manner’.

Defra said that it will ‘amend guidance to local authorities to clarify that they should ask MRFs to provide robust information on reject rates when reporting recycling rates to WasteDataFlow’. It is hoped that this wil ‘incentivise’ local authorities to request ‘robust information’ from MRFs on quality and reject rates, and ‘take greater interest in the performance of their collection systems and the MRFs with whom they contract’.

Commenting at the time, Ray Georgeson, Chief Executive of a professional advocacy body for the reprocessing and recycling industries – the Resource Association – argued that “until there is real transparency of data and reporting – from the point of collection, through sorting and on to end destination – debate about trends and performance on anything other than the real diminishing amounts of landfill will continue to be inadequately informed.”

Read the recycling figures for Q2 of 2012/13.