Calls for 'less confusion' around kerbside collections as recycling rates fall

Keep Britain Tidy has repeated calls for clarity around kerbside waste collections after Defra reported a 0.7% drop in household recycling rates within England’s local authorities - as well as a fall in the total amount of waste recycled.

The annual report of local authority collected waste management in 2022/23 found that the total ‘waste from households decreased to 21.5 million tonnes - equivalent to 377 kg per person, down from 409 kg per person in 2021.

But the total amount of waste recycled decreased from 10.2 million tonnes in 2021 to 9.3 million tonnes in 2022 - a fall of 8.6%.

The rolling 12-month ‘waste from households’ recycling rate was 43.3% at the end of March 2023, which is a decrease of 0.8% compared with the previous 12-month period. 

Allison Ogden-Newton OBE, Chief Executive of Keep Britain Tidy, said: “It is disappointing to see our recycling rates falling at a time when we should be doing more than ever to stop valuable materials being buried or burned.

“We are falling further and further behind some of our neighbours in Europe. In Germany, 71% of municipal waste is recycled and Slovenia has seen recycling rates increase from 22% in 2010 to 60% in 2021.

“We need producers to make it easier for people by using packaging that can be recycled in kerbside bin collections and we need a simpler system, with everyone, wherever they live, able to recycle the same things at home so we can give the public clear guidance and avoid the massive confusion that currently leads to inconsistent or incorrect recycling or, indeed, not recycling at all.

“While it is good to see that total waste collected from households has reduced by more than 1.6 million tonnes since 2021, a fall of 7.6%, which is important, we still need to dramatically cut the amount of waste we are each responsible for generating.

"We will do this by reducing the amount of ‘stuff’ we buy and repairing or reusing what we already own.”

Nearly 60,000 people took part in the charity's Buy Nothing New Month campaign in January which encourages people to move beyond simply recycling, to reducing the amount of new stuff that they buy, and by extension, the amount of waste that they create.

 Buying less ‘new’ stuff is one action we can all take that is good for the environment and also has the added benefit of being good for our finances at a time when money is tight for millions of us.