The Campaign for Real Recycling has launched its ‘recycling collection hierarchy’ in a call to local authorities to improve the quality of materials sent to recovery facilities.

The hierarchy shows how the campaign rates different collection methods on sustainability and cost-effectiveness.

CRR says the ‘best’ method for maintaining the quality of materials is a kerbside collection, with paper and card separate to other items.

The least favourable approach is what CRR refers to as the ‘survival bag’, where a mix of recyclable materials is placed in a single bag that is collected at the same time as normal household waste.

Mal Williams, chair of the campaign, said the hierarchy provides local authorities with a toolkit and advice on what the UK reprocessing industry is asking for.

‘It seems a lot of authorities are only concerned with landfill targets and not the longer-term concerns of what happens to recycled materials,’ he said.

‘Material recovery facilities have an average reject rate of around 10-15% reject rates, and this can reach 35-40%. This is a huge amount of supposedly recyclable material not being properly reused.’

However, Alice Roberts, policy adviser at the Local Government Association, said councils were ‘stuck between a rock and a hard place’.

‘Councils are mindful about quality as well as quantity, but if co-mingling is a lower-cost option and can achieve increases in tonnage then it makes sense to choose the better value for money option, particularly as this approach will maximise diversion of waste from landfill.’