Reduced bin collections fail to boost recycling rates

RECYCLING rates in England have barely increased in eight years despite the number of households with weekly bin collections falling by a third.

Councils justified moving away from weekly collections by claiming recycling rates would improve as people avoided overfilling their bins. But a reduction in the frequency of bin collections failed to significantly improve recycling rates, with research published by the national spending watchdog showing they increased just two per cent between 2010-11 and 2016-17.

The National Audit Office said the small rise represented a “marked slowdown from the previous rate of improvement”. The percentage of total household waste sent for recycling in England in 2010-11 was 41.5 per cent. In 2016-17 it crept up to 43.7 per cent.

Recycling levels soared in the 2000s. In 2003-04 the rate was 17.8 per cent, growing to 39.7 per cent in 2009-10.

The figures suggest that the UK may struggle to hit an EU target of recycling half of all household waste by 2020.

Cutting waste collections has been a source of frustration for many households. The NAO estimated that the total number of homes receiving at least a weekly service fell 34 per cent between 2010-11 and 2016-17.

Cllr Martin Tett, a local government spokesman, claimed recycling was a “real success story for councils” and said polling showed eight out of 10 people were happy with collections. But he went on: “Councils are under huge financial pressures and in England face an overall funding gap that will exceed £5billion by 2020. Having to prioritise vital services such as children’s services, adult social care and homelessness is leaving less money for councils to fund other services, such as waste.

“We need to reduce waste in the first place, so councils are keen to work with supermarkets and manufacturers so that they can switch to recyclable packaging where possible.”

The disclosures came to light as part of an NAO health check into the scale of cuts at local authority level. Waste collection is just one service that has been slashed as councils prioritise funding for social care – but even that has fallen by 3 per cent between 2010 and 2017.

There has been a 33 per cent reduction in spending on other services.

And since 2010, central government funding for councils had been cut by half, the report said.