Recycling and resource management company SITA UK has today (3 October) released an interactive digital map illustrating UK local authority recycling data, from sources including Resource magazine.

The online digital tool has been released to provide members of the public with ‘readily accessible information about their own authority's recycling performance’ relative to the rest of the nation.

It comes off the back of Keep Britain Tidy’s report ‘The Ur[bin] issue’ and public inquiry (held in partnership with SITA UK), which identified that there is widespread confusion and disengagement with recycling.

As such, it is hoped the interactive tool will encourage more engagement with recycling among residents.

How the tool works

Produced by economics and planning consultancy Nathaniel Lichfield & Partners (NLP), the tool colour-codes local authorities across the UK according to their recycling rate.

Basing the average national recycling rate in the middle of the scale, local authorities falling below the 30 per cent recycling rate are indicated in red, those between 30 and 40 per cent are coloured amber, councils recycling between 40 and 50 per cent are yellow, while the highest performing councils are coloured light green if they are reaching 50 to 60 per cent, or dark green if they have a recycling rate over 60 per cent.

The online digital tool allows users to click on individual local authorities to view a range of information about recycling services, materials collected, waste arising per capita and collection frequency for each authority – which was compiled from a range of data sources:

• waste collection schemes and materials were provided by WRAP;
• the average recycling rate figures are those reported by the Scottish Environmental Protection Agency (SEPA) for 2013 and the Department for the Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (Defra) for the 2012/13 financial year (the map will be updated with 2013/14 data once the figures are released later this year); and
• waste arisings for England, Wales and Northern Ireland come from the local authority league table published in issue 76 of Resource, which was compiled using data from WasteDataFlow and other sources.

The map also contains the post-2009 rural/urban classification of local authorities for England compiled by the Office for National Statistics (ONS), to show the performance differences between urban and rural authorities.

‘An easy-to-understand graphical format that everyone could use’

Thanking WRAP, Resource Media, and NLP for their contribution to the tool, Chief Executive Officer of SITA UK David Palmer-Jones, said: “There is a good deal of publically-available data for recycling and waste services at a local authority level, but we wanted to collate this information and present it in an easy-to-understand graphical format that everyone could use – not just those with enough interest to trawl through spreadsheets.

“One of the findings from The Ur[bin] Issue was that householders had little understanding of the national picture, or their own authority’s recycling performance relative to others – which contributed to them feeling disengaged and unmotivated to recycle.

“If we are going to improve recycling rates, our industry needs to engage the householders that play such a vital role in the process and providing quality, accessible information is the first step in that process.”

Recognising that the tool, and in particular the colour banding, will cause some debate, Palmer-Jones said that SITA UK would “value feedback… so that [it] may consider refining future versions”. However, he added that the company felt the “bold, simple, banding would help to engage a wide audience”, and it is not intended to make a “political statement”.

James Fennell, Managing Director of Nathaniel Lichfield & Partners, who helped create the tool, also commented, saying: "Recycling is now firmly on the map! In creating this interactive tool, we hope to highlight what great progress has been made in many areas of the country and to reach people who may not have taken an active interest in recycling to date.”

WRAP has urged local authorities to visit its Recycle Now website for more advice and guidance on delivering recycling communication programmes.

Discover the interactive UK recycling map.