Target Miss Should Not Be Seen As Failure

4 November 2010

Reported new figures published today, by Defra, reveal that England missed the Waste Strategy target of 40 percent recycling of household waste by 2010, by 0.3 percent achieving 39.7 percent. Despite the narrow miss, there has been an increase from the 37.6 percent achieved for 2008/09, however this is less of an increase compared to the 3.1 and 3.6 percent for previous years.

Drawing on the fact that some local authorities have already met, and exceeded, the 2020 EU Waste Framework Directive target, of 50 percent recycling, CIWM said: "This should not be seen as a 'failure'. There has been remarkable turnaround across the decade and recycling and composting targets have improved by five times, from less than ten percent to 40 percent.

"It is getting tougher to make progress, especially after last months CSR, which will bite deep into local authority spending over the next four years; both in terms of front-end services and the new infrastructure we need to put 'waste back to work'.

"Well done across England to the high performing communities, their authorities and contractors… but as ever there is more than can be done and we look forward to these achievements!"