Local authorities in Northern Ireland have sent less than half of their municipal waste to landfill for the first time, new figures have revealed.
The provisional ‘Northern Ireland Local Authority Collected (LAC) Municipal Waste Management Statistics April – June 2013’, published today (24 October), found that under half (48.8 per cent) of all LAC municipal waste was sent to landfill in the first quarter of 2013/14, the lowest quarterly landfill rate on record for the country.
The figure marks the first time the landfill rate has fallen below 50 per cent and represents a six per cent reduction in the amount of waste sent to landfill on the previous quarter.
Although the overall amount of LAC municipal waste arisings increased by 0.8 per cent (compared with the same period in 2012/13), from 238,695 tonnes to 240,569 tonnes, the recycling and composting rates rose from 40.0 per cent to 42.1 per cent.
Key report findings
Of the three waste management groups, the Southern Waste Management Partnership (SWaMP2008) had the highest percentage of LAC municipal waste landfilled this quarter, at 50.6 per cent. This was followed by the North West Region Waste Management Group(NWRWMG), which landfilled 49.6 per cent, and arc21, which landfilled 47.7 per cent.
Of all waste collected for recycling, 47.5 per cent was ‘compostable’, and made up the majority of material collected, together with paper and card (18.2 per cent).
Household waste made up just under 88 per cent of all municipal waste collected, totaling 211,650 tonnes – an increase of 0.9 per cent on the same period last year. Of this, 21.2 per cent was recycled, and 21.5 per cent was composted. The amount of household waste landfilled improved by six per cent on the year before, dropping from 54 per cent, to 48 per cent.
Northern Ireland's Environment Minister, Mark H Durkan, today welcomed the fact that recycling rates have increased saying: “The increase in recycling to their highest ever spring levels is good news. It shows that as a society, we are changing our thinking and behaviour when it comes to waste. More of us are reusing resources which we would normally have simply classed as waste.
“Both householders and businesses can check they are maximising their recycling opportunities by visiting www.rethinkwasteni.org funded by my department. Another opportunity is to get involved in the European Week for Waste Reduction (16-24 November) as we all know prevention is better than a cure.”
Final figures for this quarter will not be released until the final end-year validation has been completed next year.
All figures in this report are based on returns made to WasteDataFlow, a website to which all UK local authorities report their LAC municipal waste figures.
Read the ‘Northern Ireland Local Authority Collected Municipal Waste Management Statistics Report’.
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