Households in England broke through the 40% recycling rate for the first time in 2010, however the speed at which recycling rates are increasing has continued to slow down.
Government figures published this month show that Rochford District Council and South Oxfordshire District Council topped the recycling league tables, with recycling, reuse and composting rates of 65.79% and 65.11% respectively. Ashford Borough Council was bottom of the rankings with a rate of just 14%. The average recycling rate for English councils was 41.2% between April 2010 and March 2011, up from 39.7% the year before. Recycling rates have been increasing annually in the past decade, but the rate of progress been begun to slow since 2008, a trend that continued last year.
Minister for waste and recycling, Lord Taylor, said, "Recycling is now part of our everyday lives and we're sending less waste to landfill than ever before. This is good news for householders, councils and the environment, but there is still much more we can all do. By all working together to deliver the recycling services local people want and need, we can achieve our ultimate aim of a zero waste economy."
The Waste Framework Directive 2008/98/EC, requires Member States to recycle, compost or reuse 50% of waste from households by 2020. The UK Government has been looking at a series of measures to reduce waste, including charging people who fail to recycle their rubbish and, in parts of the country, reducing weekly bin collections to fortnightly. The UK still produces more household waste per head of population than many of its European neighbours, with an average of 449kg per year, compared to 406kg for the European average.
