Local authorities (LAs) in Northern Ireland sent 103,262 tonnes of municipal waste to landfill between January and March 2014, a record low for the country.

The provisional 'Northern Ireland Local Authority Collected (LAC) Municipal Waste Management Statistics January to March 2014', published today (24 July), show that LAs sent almost two per cent less municipal waste to landfill between January and March 2014 than they did the year before. As a proportion of total waste arisings, the figure dropped by more than two per cent, with 47.9 per cent of all municipal waste collected going to landfill, down from 50 per cent the year before.

Further, the amount of municipal waste sent for recycling and composting increased by one per cent on the year before, rising to 36.4 per cent.

In terms of biodegradable municipal waste, LAs sent 62,641 tonnes to landfill during this quarter, 2.2 per cent less than the same quarter last year (64,082 tonnes). This equated to 20.5 per cent of the annual allocation. To date, between April 2013 and March 2014, 82.5 per cent of the annual allocation has been used.

Despite the increases in recycling and decrease in landfilling, the overall amount of municipal waste rose in early 2014, with LAs collecting 215,608 tonnes of waste over the first three months, up from 210,459 in 2013.

Household waste

The proportions of household waste landfilled and recycled/composted showed similar trends. The total tonnage of household waste sent to landfill for the final quarter of 2013/14 was 90,070 tonnes, nearly three per cent less than the same period in 2012/13 (when 92,391 tonnes was landfilled).

Overall, less than half (47.6 per cent) of household waste was sent to landfill, an improvement of 2.5 percentage points on the year before, while the percentage of household waste recycled or composted increased by around one per cent, to 37 per cent. Of this, the majority (24.5 per cent) was recycled, while 12.5 per cent was composted. (This contrasts with trends beginning to emerge in England, where recycling rates fell for the first time following a drop in composting.)

Looking to the composition of household recycling, the most commonly recycled stream was paper and card (56.8 per cent of the material was captured for recycling), while at the other end of the spectrum, waste electronic and electrical equipment (WEEE) was least commonly captured, with just 1.5 per cent put out for collection.

Organic/compostable waste and glass saw notable improvements year-on-year, rising by 4.9 per cent and 3.9 per cent respectively.

Warning over recycling 'levelling off'

Commenting on the figures Environment Minister, Mark H Durkan said: “The sustained increase in recycling is good news with the highest ever municipal winter recycling level recorded. The increase in compostable waste recycled shows that the public is increasingly using organic recycling kerbside collection services in the North.

“However, we all need to renew our efforts to recycle plastics, cans, paper and cardboard. Today’s figures show a levelling off on household recycling for these key materials. The recycling of these valuable resources can generate significant economic benefits for society. Otherwise they get dumped in a landfill and become an unnecessary cost.

“It is easy for all of us to recycle at home by simply taking a little time to use our local council kerbside recycling service. At this time of year we should try to export our eco-friendly habits by using recycling facilities when on holiday.”

The data in this report are based on returns made to WasteDataFlow, a web based system, used by all UK local authorities to report LAC municipal waste.

A final end-year validation of these figures will be released in the annual report on 27 November.

Read the provisional waste statistics for January-March 2014.