Large Drop Recorded In Year-End Landfill Rate

The 2014/15 Northern Ireland local authority collected municipal waste management statistics annual report has been published today.

The report reveals that the local authority collected (LAC) municipal waste landfill rate decreased by more than 5 percentage points over the previous year to sit at a little over 43% in 2014/15. Over the past decade the landfill rate has relentlessly decreased from 74% in 2006/07 as dry recycling, composting and energy recovery rates have all increased as alternative methods of waste treatment.

There has been strong growth in energy recovery in recent years due to the increasing use of dirty material recovery facilities which help isolate material for this purpose. This growth continued in 2014/15 as the LAC municipal waste energy recovery rate increased by almost 5 percentage points from the previous year to almost 15%.

The LAC preparing for reuse, dry recycling and composting rate increased by almost one percentage point over the previous year to reach above 41%. However this was one of the smallest increases recorded in recent years.

Key points for 2014/15:

*  Northern Ireland’s district councils collected 951,423 tonnes of local authority collected (LAC) municipal waste during 2014/15. This was a 2.9% increase on the 924,412 tonnes collected the previous year. Household waste accounted for 88% of total LAC municipal waste arisings. Newry and Mourne and Fermanagh District Councils generated the smallest quantities of household waste per person at 391kg and 396kg per person. The largest quantities per person were recorded in Antrim Borough Council at 571kg per person.

*  The LAC municipal waste preparing for reuse, dry recycling and composting rate was 41.4%. This was an increase of approaching one percentage point on the 40.6% achieved last year. Waste sent for preparing for reuse has been included for the first time and added 0.1 percentage points. The increase was driven by composting which reached a record high of 170,878 tonnes, giving a composting rate of 18.0%, compared to 17.0% last year. The dry recycling rate decreased from 23.7% last year to 23.3% this year despite also reaching a record high of 222,084 tonnes sent. Banbridge District Council had the highest LAC municipal preparing for reuse, dry recycling and composting rate at 60.6% and Strabane District Council had the lowest at 28.5%.

*  Excluding non-household waste, the Northern Ireland household preparing for reuse, dry recycling and composting rate was 42.0%. This was below the Northern Ireland Programme for Government and the revised Northern Ireland Waste Management Strategy targets of 45% by 2015.

*  Over the past decade as the dry recycling, composting and energy recovery rates have increased, the landfill rate has decreased, from 74.0% of all LAC municipal waste in 2006/07 to 43.4% in 2014/15. This was 5.2 percentage points lower than the landfill rate of 48.6% last year. Banbridge and Magherafelt District Councils had the lowest LAC municipal landfill rates in 2014/15 at 7.2% and 17.1%. Ards Borough Council, Down District Council and Newry and Mourne District Council had the highest landfill rates at 60.6%, 60.0% and 59.8% respectively.

*  The LAC municipal waste energy recovery rate rose 4.8 percentage points from 10.1% to 14.9%. There has been strong growth in recent years in energy recovery due to the increasing use of dirty material recovery facilities.

*  There were 229,099 tonnes of biodegradable LAC municipal waste sent to landfill in 2014/15. This was 78.6% of the landfill allowance allocation for 2014/15.