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You are here: CIWM  >  Publications  >  Latest News  >  England Hits 40 Percent

England Hits 40 Percent

4 February 2011

Quarterly recycling figures released by Defra have revealed that, in the year to the end of June 2010, England achieved the 40 percent recycling and composting target set out in Waste Strategy 2007. This represents an improvement on the 39.7 percent achieved during the full financial year 2009/10 and is part of a trend towards higher recycling rates and a fall in the overall household waste generated.

The data, submitted by councils to the government's Waste DataFlow database, also revealed a further fall in the amount of waste generated per person, to 456kg, continuing a trend begun in 2006/07.

But the impact of the public spending cuts could make further progress harder, not just in terms of affecting current/planned collection and recycling services, but hitting services like Household waste Recycling Centres (often the real stars of recycling) and bring bank systems.

Waste and recycling minister, Lord Henley, said: "We're recycling more than ever before and producing less waste in the first place with people across the country working hard to make this happen.
"This is great news that we want to see continue, and as part of the waste review we're looking at how to make it even easier for us all to do the right thing."

Commenting on the figures, CIWM ceo Steve Lee stressed that, while we need to maintain progress on recycling, we must also turn our attention to waste prevention. We are obliged to agree a national prevention plan by the end of 2013 but we should aspire to beat that deadline - we need a firm plan and to get started on it. The down-turn in household waste production we have seen could be no more than a predictable impact of the down-turn in the economy and the danger is that, when the economy gets brighter, waste production begins to soar upwards again.

"This is a great performance - one that would have seemed unthinkable just a few years ago. The will of the public is firmly behind recycling, one of the first real behavioural changes in support of more sustainable living, and CIWM believes that more can be done to improve still further on the 40 percent achieved," said Steve.

For full details go to: www.defra.gov.uk/evidence/statistics/environment/wastats/bulletin11qtr.htm

Helen Amos