The Municipal Waste Management Survey provides a fully-audited account of council recycling and waste disposal during 2003/04, formally confirming the summary report released by Defra in March (see letsrecycle.com story).
The report confirms that for the first time, the amount of municipal waste being sent to landfill fell in absolute terms, from 29.4 million tonnes in 2002/03 to 29.1 million tonnes in 2003/04, a decrease of about 1%.
England's national recycling rate has been confirmed as 17.7% for 2003/04 in the report – up from 14.5% during the previous year. Nationally, 28% of municipal waste had some sort of value recovered from it – including material processed in energy-from-waste facilities – an increase from 24.7% during 2002/03.
The proportion of waste going to landfill fell three percentage points to 72% during 2003/04.
Recycling
Defra said that 79% of households in the UK were provided with kerbside recycling services, while the amount being recycled through such services increased 52% compared to the previous year. 1.9 million tonnes of household waste was recycled through kerbside schemes in 2003/04.
Organic waste destined for composting remained the most common material collected for recycling, with 1.4 million tonnes collected during 2003/04. Paper was the second most commonly recycled material with 1.3 million tonnes collected in that year.
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Regionally, the North West of England had the highest landfill rates at 80%, with the West Midlands achieving the lowest landfill rates (53%) partly through energy-from-waste capacity. The East of England achieved the highest regional recycling rate (23.4%) followed closely by the South East (22.8%).
A full copy of the Municipal Waste Management Survey is available on the Defra website. Hard copies are also available from Defra.
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