As Northern Ireland's household recycling rates overtake England's for the first time, £23 million is planned to be spent on investments for schemes to make recycling easier in the region.
The recycling rate, which has surpassed England by "over 48 percent", was announced on 28 June 2019 and is an increase on 2017's local authority collected municipal recycling rate of 46.3 percent. Aiming to allow councils to improve existing provisions, the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (DAERA) has launched the Household Waste Recycling Collaborative Change Programme - it is expected to cover services such as kerbside collections and funding household waste recycling centres.
This sum of money brings the investment of money into council recycling services and infrastructure up to over £40 million since 2010. Its effect has been seen as a 35 percent increase in recycling rates and therefore almost 100,000 additional tonnes of recycling a year. They explained that there was a public appetite for DAERA to take action to encourage recycling in Northern Ireland, and hoped the fund would make the process more accessible and allow homes to easily recycle a greater range of materials. Whilst there is some variation across Northern Ireland, the highest boasts a 56.3 percent recycling rate at its best.
In the same announcement, DAERA claim their landfill rates are now the lowest ever recorded, and that 1.1 million fewer plastic bags were dispensed to customers in 2017/2018.
