England sends less waste being to landfill

The amount of waste sent to landfill by local authorities in England dropped by more than 7% in 2010, according to figures released by Defra

Provisional data collected by the department, reveals that not only is more waste was being recycled, composted and used to generate energy than in previous years but that households and businesses generated less waste too.

According to Defra, the total amount of waste collected by councils in England has fallen by more than 2.5 million tonnes since the 2007/2008 financial year, approximately 9% of the total, with household recycling rates up from 34.5% to 40.8%.

During 2010, local authorities recovered 54.6% of the waste they collected, through reuse, recycling or energy generation, up from just 45.1% in 2007/2008.

Resource efficiency body WRAP has confirmed its analyses show similar results and that it believes the positive trends are due to a number of factors including greater awareness on the part of consumers, changing consumption patterns linked to the current economic climate and the efforts of retailers and others to reduce packaging.

While the figures show improvement, they come just a week after it was revealed that plastic carrier bag use in the UK increased 5% in 2010, following four years of decline between 2006-2009.

Defra’s figures for England are also not as dramatic as those published by the Scottish Environment Protection Agency last month, which revealed the amount of waste sent to landfill in Scotland dropped by 36% between 2005–2009.