Wales leads recycling rates

BBC: Wales is leading the rest of the United Kingdom in recycling rates.

New provisional figures show Wales is recycling 54% of the 373,000 tonnes of rubbish thrown out every three months.

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs’ latest figuresfor household waste from 2012 showed the overall UK recycling rate was 43.9%.

It was 44.1% in England, 41.7% in Northern Ireland and 38.3% in Scotland. Wales’ figure in 2012 was 52.5%.

In 2012, England recycled a total of 9,684,000 tonnes from 21,960,000 tonnes of waste, while Northern Ireland recycled 326,000 tonnes from 783,000.

Scotland’s rate was 912,000 tonnes from 2,383,000 and Wales recycled 685,000 tonnes from 1,304,000.

Local authorities in Wales achieved a record overall recycling rate of 54.3% in 2013/14, figures published by the Welsh Government confirmed today (November 13).

The latest figures show the amount of local authority municipal waste recycled, composted or reused by all 22 councils in Wales rose by more than 2% this year, after the country hit its 52% statutory recycling target in 2012/13 (see letsrecycle.com story).

Meanwhile, the statistics showed the amount of local authority municipal waste generated in Wales rose slightly in 2013/14 to 1.56 million tonnes due to an increase in non-household waste arisings.

And, the amount of residual waste generated continued to fall – with 0.6 million tonnes disposed of via landfill or other treatment methods. (Full Letsrecycle article)