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Food and green waste collection in the UK 2013-14
Although the growth in the collection of green waste and food waste has been impressive over the last decade, there has been a slowing of these volumes in recent times as fiscal pressures come to bear and local authorities are faced with making difficult decisions on reducing the level of service to householders for the collection of food waste and green waste and have in some instances started to charge for green waste collections. The latter has adversely impacted on the volume of material collected in these schemes and will do little to assist in the UK meeting its mandatory 50% EU recycling target which we need to achieve by 2020. Currently we are stalled at 45%.
Headline numbers:
- Total number of UK waste collection authorities=406
- 382 UK authorities collect garden waste equating to 94% of the total UK authorities.
- Of the above 382 authorities, 264 UK authorities collect only garden waste.
- 107 UK authorities collect food waste mixed with garden waste (commingled) equating to 26% to the total number of UK authorities
- 130 UK authorities collect food waste separately equating to 32% of the total number of UK authorities
The above figures are broken down across the nations of the UK as follows:
|
|
Garden waste |
Chargeable garden waste |
Card with garden waste |
Food with garden waste |
Garden waste only |
Separate food waste |
|
England |
312 |
134 |
20 |
78 |
225 |
92 |
|
Wales |
21 |
8 |
3 |
2 |
17 |
21 |
|
Scotland |
27 |
0 |
1 |
8 |
19 |
16 |
|
Northern Ireland |
22 |
1 |
4 |
19 |
3 |
1 |
|
UK |
382 |
143 |
28 |
107 |
264 |
130 |
In terms of the % of hh provided with a food waste collection (either separate or mixed), the following graph helps to illustrate the growth in service provision over recent years across the UK.
