Local authorities in Northern Ireland sent less than half of municipal collected waste to landfill in the last financial year, a record low for the country.
The ‘Northern Ireland (NI) Local Authority Collected (LAC) Municipal Waste Management Statistics’ report for the financial year 2013/14 was published today (27 November) based on returns made to WasteDataFlow.
Overall waste statistics
It outlined that although household waste arisings increased for the first time in seven years (from 804,000 tonnes to 815,000 tonnes), the proportion of household waste sent to landfill has dropped by almost five percentage points, from around 54 per cent in 2012/13 to 49 per cent in 2013/14. This marks the lowest annual landfilling rate for the country. (It was also revealed last month that for the second quarter of 2014/15, local authorities (LAs) in Northern Ireland sent more waste for recycling and composting than they did to landfill).
According to the Department of the Environment (DOE), the drop could be due to a change in the way in councils choose to handle their residual waste, as ‘instead of sending this straight to landfill, dirty MRFs (material recovery facilities) are becoming more popular as a way of capturing more recyclable material from residual waste. This material can also be sent for energy recovery in the form of refuse-derived fuel (RDF) which also diverts it from landfill’.
Indeed, the proportion of local authority collected (LAC) municipal waste sent to energy recovery (10.1 per cent) has increased by 3.2 percentage points compared with last year’s rate of 6.9 per cent.
Further to this, the amount of waste sent for recycling and composting increased, with councils sending 41 per cent (375,681 tonnes) of all municipal collected waste through this route, nearly two per cent more than in 2012/13. DOE suggests that this could be due to the effects of the ongoing Rethink Waste campaign, which encourages people to reduce, reuse and recycle their waste.
Despite the overall rise, however, councils failed to reach the Northern Ireland Programme for Government milestone target for recycling and composting for a second year in a row, coming two per cent below target.
District rankings
According to the statistics, Banbridge District Council is now the best performing council in terms of the proportion of LAC municipal waste it recycles/composts, with a rate of 58 per cent. Antrim Borough Council followed with 56.2 per cent, and Magherafelt District Council – which last year had the highest recycling rate (55.4 per cent) – fell to third place, recycling 2.3 per cent less than in the last financial year.
However, Magherafelt District Council is the best performing district council in terms of the percentage of LAC municipal waste it sends to landfill, with a low of 28.1 per cent. The district council with the highest landfilling rate was Down District Council (at 67.5 per cent), which also had the lowest recycling and composting rate (28.7 per cent).
Despite Derry City Council having the lowest recycling rate last year (at 28.1 per cent), this council saw the biggest increase in recycling in the most recent year (up 7.2 percentage points to 35.3 per cent).
Larne Borough Council produced the highest amount of household waste per person in Northern Ireland (528 kilogrammes (kg)), while the population living in Fermanagh District Council had the lowest amount of household waste per head of population (388kg).
Recycling food waste ‘could easily meet future European targets’
Speaking at the Waste & Resources Action Programme Northern Ireland (WRAP NI) conference today, Environment Minister Mark H Durkan said: “The North has turned an important corner in our road to zero waste. We are increasingly seeing waste as a valuable resource. Clearly, the message to prevent waste and recycle has been taken on board by householders across the country. Their recycling efforts have diverted an additional 18,000 tonnes of waste from landfill since the previous year. That’s £1.3 million extra in landfill tax savings for Northern Ireland councils. But we must be careful not to be too complacent, we are only half way to a zero waste society.”
Durkan also today reaffirmed his intention to introduce regulations to restrict food waste going to landfill in the coming months. He said: “Approximately 190,000 tonnes of food waste is landfilled every year. Recycling this waste alone could easily meet future European targets and save millions of pounds for councils.”
Read the 2013/14 ‘Northern Ireland (NI) Local Authority Collected (LAC) Municipal Waste Management Statistics’ report.
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