The Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (Defra) has recently published the household recycling figures for England in 2022, revealing an overall recycling rate of 43.4%, marking a slight decrease of 0.7% compared to the previous year.

Defra Shares Statistics Showing a Decrease in Household Recycling Rates in England
The Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (Defra) has recently published the household recycling figures for England in 2022.
The total weight of recycled waste also saw a decline from 10.2 million tonnes to 9.3 million tonnes, with dry recycled material experiencing a more significant drop of 7.1% to 5.5 million tonnes.
“Other organic” waste sent for recycling was 3.3 million tonnes, a decrease of 442 thousand tonnes or 12% from 2021.
Conversely, there were positive trends observed in waste disposal, with landfill quantities decreasing by 16% from 1.8 million tonnes in 2021/2022 to 1.5 million tonnes in 2022/2023, alongside a reduction in waste sent for incineration. However, food waste recycling also experienced a decrease of 2.6%, which may indicate a reduction in household food waste, although the forthcoming implementation of mandatory food waste collections could see this trend reversed.
The data underscores substantial disparities in recycling performance among local authorities, ranging from 17.7% to 61.6%. Various factors such as socio-economic indicators, housing types, and geographical location impact household recycling rates. Nevertheless, upcoming reforms, such as the Simpler Recycling initiative, aim to address these discrepancies by standardising the materials collected from domestic and business premises. Additionally, the implementation of Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) for packaging is expected to contribute to increased recycling rates through increasing council waste management budgets through obligating packaging producers to pay a Local Authority Waste Management Fee. EPR will also introduce modulated fees, penalising producers for harder-to-recycle materials and incentivising the use of more sustainable packaging materials.
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