This means the country is firmly on track to reach its statutory target of recycling and composting 52% of waste by 2012/13, the Welsh Government said (see letsrecycle.com story).
The figures were revealed in a report entitled Local Authority Municipal Waste Management, January-March 2012. The report sets out the provisional quarterly recycling rates for municipal waste achieved by Welsh local authorities in the final quarter of 2011/12, which are reported to the Environment Agencys WasteDataFlowdatabase, and uses these to calculate performance for the whole 2011/12 financial year. Final figures are expected to be published at the end of 2012.
The provisional 48% recycling rate for the financial year 2011/12 represents a four percentage point increase on the previous year, when the country achieved a 44% municipal waste recycling rate.
Progress
Commenting on the results, environment minister John Griffiths said: I am delighted that the people of Wales are managing their waste in a sustainable and environmentally friendly manner. I congratulate local authorities across Wales for their important role in achieving this impressive result.
One reason for our good progress is that every local authority in Wales offers weekly food collection services. Separating out food waste not only diverts significant waste away from landfill, it also makes us far more aware of the food we are wasting, which can often result in reduced waste and lower food bills. The key thing now is that we continue to build on our recycling success so that we can meet our challenging targets of 70% recycling by 2025 and zero waste by 2050.
Mr Griffiths added that he hoped to see the country break through the 50% barrier in the summer of 2012.
Councils
The local authority with the highest recycling and composting rate in the 12 months to the end of March 2012 was the Ceredigion with 58% followed by Denbighshire with 57% and Caerphilly with 56%.
At the other end of the scale the Powys had the lowest recycling rate at 40% followed by Merthyr Tydfil and Neath Port Talbot with recycling rates of 42%.
When comparing rates in January to March 2012 with the same quarter in 2010/11 it can be seen that Flintshire, Merthyr Tydfil and Conwy had the biggest increases in their recycling rates with 15, 13 and 12 percentage points increases respectively. The government said the increases could be a result of service changes such as the introduction of a fortnightly residual collection and roll out of a more comprehensive recycling service involving weekly kerbside recycling and food waste collections.
Quarterly
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Looking at the quarterly figures, Wales recycling and composting rate for the period between January to March 2012 hit 48%, an increase of five percentage points on the same quarter in 2011.
Meanwhile the amount of residual waste arising continued to fall during this period. The total amount of local authority municipal (household and non-household) waste generated in Wales has generally decreased, with the amount of waste generated in the January to March 2012 7% lower than for the same quarter in 2011 and 13% lower than for the same quarter in 2008.
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