Local homeowners are recycling more, despite national trend

Recycling Bins

Residents of the borough sent more of their household waste for recycling in 2015 compared to 2014, despite a drop in the national recycling rate/ contributing to a nationwide decrease in the ‘waste from households’ recycling rate.

The latest UK statistics on waste from the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (DEFRA) revealed an increase of 6.7 percentage points in the ‘waste for households’ recycling rate for Rochdale MBC, from 33.4 per cent in 2014/15 to 40.1 per cent in 2015/2016.

This increase defies the national downwards trend revealed by DEFRA’s data: the UK recycling rate for ‘waste from households’ fell from 44.9 per cent in 2014 to 44.3 per cent in 2015.

There is an EU target for the UK to recycle at least 50 per cent of household waste by 2020.

The statistics from DEFRA reveal that the ‘waste from households’ recycling rate for England has dropped from 44.8 per cent in 2014 to 43.9 per cent in 2015. This is the first time that the recycling rate has fallen below 44 per cent since 2011.