But there was bad news in the data in terms of the Welsh Government’s ambition to reduce waste arisings with the amount of waste generated during October to December 2015 up by 2%, to 369,000 tonnes, compared with the same quarter of 2014.
The 59% figure, which is provisional, compares to 56% for the 2014 calendar year and includes reuse, recycling and composting. And, in a further indication that the recycling rate is gaining pace in Wales, the Welsh Government noted that the recycling rate for the final quarter of 2015 was 58% compared to 53% in the same quarter of 2014.
Significantly, councils using the incinerators for municipal waste with bottom ash recycling saw their recycling rates leap up when figures for the last quarter of 2015 are compared to the last quarter of 2014.
Incineration
On incineration, the Welsh Government noted that in “Caerphilly, Vale of Glamorgan and Wrexham there has been an increase in the quantities of residual waste being sent for incineration and an increase in the resulting incinerator bottom ash being recovered.”
Unlike England, Wales allows for the recycling of incinerator bottom ash to be included in its recycling figures although this cannot be included in figures returned to the European Union or in the calculation of the UK national recycling rate.
The importance of the bottom ash recycling is seen within the data for the specific councils. In the final quarter of 2014, Caerphilly reported a recycling and composting rate of 51% and this rose to 64% for the same period in 2015. Similarly, Vale of Glamorgan reported a 51% rate which rose to 63% while Cardiff showed a rise of 9%, up from 44% to 53% for the final quarter of 2015.
In terms of waste arisings increasing, just over half of the local authorities (12 of the 22) reported a decrease in residual household waste generated per person, compared with October to December 2014. The largest decrease was in Powys (down 29%), followed by Ceredigion (down 25%).
However in the Valleys authorities, waste arisings rose. The biggest quarterly increase was at Rhondda Cynon Taf, with a population of 234,300, which reported a 46% rise in household waste generated per person. “This is also reflected in the large increase in municipal waste generated in this authority,” the Welsh Government said.
The statistical release containing the data covers provisional quarterly results from the WasteDataFlow system, which is monitored by Natural Resources Wales, for October to December 2015 (Quarter 3, 2015-16).
The Welsh Government’s current waste strategy “Towards Zero Waste” has set a target of 70% recycling/composting of municipal waste by 2024/25. To help achieve this overarching target, Statutory Recycling Targets (SRT) have been set during key years; for 2015/16 a target of 58% has been set for all local authority collected municipal waste.
Subscribe for free