Recycling has become a common factor in today's society, what with the accessibility to recycling centres, numerous recycling bins for your home as well as other recycling avenues. A recent report has revealed that England has achieved its highest recycling rate of 44.9%, nearly hitting the 50% target which needs to be achieved across the whole of the EU by 2020. Recycling has become part of our everyday routine and seeing these figures, we can only hope to hit the 50% target. Further figures show us that:
- The quarterly 'waste from households' data, which covers all of the waste handled by local authorities found that England achieved the quarterly recycling rate of 48.5% for the first quarter of 2014/15.This beats our previous record of 47.6% between July to September 2012
- Recycling increased to 44.9% in households over a 12 month period to June 2014
- The waste produced by households from June 2013 to June 2014 increased by 2.5%
- Dry recycling increased by 2.4% whilst organic recycling increased by 7.8%
- Between April and June 2014, local authorities in England recycled more organic waste than dry recyclables for the first time ever. This was due to the tonnage of 'other organics' that were composted increasing the percentage to 17.4%, compared to the same period in 2013.
These figures have been published by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) who believes that the increase in the rise of composting of green waste is down to the warmer than average spring which fell across England in 2014. An impressive 1.5 million tonnes of green waste was collected and treated on behalf of councils in the first quarter of 2014/15, compared to 1.29 million 12 months earlier. Target As mentioned earlier, by 2020 every country in the EU must meet the mandatory 50% recycling target by 2020 which is has been stated in the Waste Framework Directive. The framework also wants to see construction and demolition waste reach a 70% target. The EU's average recycling rate is 42%, with Germany at the top with 65% and Romania at a struggling 1%. A lot of countries have ignored the targets and are still dumping their waste in landfills. Although England has achieved an impressive 44.9% for 2013/14 there are fears we may not be able to hit the 50% target, however the Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP) has been put in place to see what we can do as a country to achieve this. Resource management minister, Dan Rogerson said: "We remain committed to building on this success and recycling 50% of our household waste by 2020. We continue to support local authorities' efforts to promote recycling and are also working with WRAP to see what further measures may be needed to achieve this." With these promising figures and with the help from local authorities, we hope England can hit the 50% target by 2020. We understand how important recycling is hence WT Skip Hire has its own waste management scheme in place. Any waste that we collect it is then taken to our recycling centre, where around 90% of it is recycled. If you would like more information please visit our waste management page. 