Manchester City Council has expressed ‘extreme frustration’ that its recycling rate appears to have dropped, despite residents recycling more than ever.
Figures show that in the first quarter of this year, 18.41% of the city’s waste was recycled – down about 5% on the same period last year.
But the apparent reduction is due to a material used for landfill cover which cannot be counted as recycling under DEFRA rules anymore. The landfill cover is mostly derived from street sweepings and bulky items which are broken down. Despite the dip in figures, the council projects that in total this year, 21.06% of the city’s waste will be recycled, up from 20.28% last year, when the landfill cover was included as recycling.
Vicky Rosin, Manchester’s director of environmental services, said: ‘The facts are that more people than ever before are recycling. The council has made it much easier for people to recycle and we have also introduced new services which allow them to recycle material which, beforehand, they could not.
‘This includes our new service which means that residents can recycle plastic and cardboard across the south of the city. This scheme – which has seen an extra 1,214t of material recycled in the south – has been so successful that we are extending it to the north of Manchester.’ Richard Cowell, Manchester’s executive member for the environment, said: ‘Just six years ago, we recycled a tiny proportion of our waste – 4.3%.
‘By the end of this year, we will have recycled more of our waste than ever before. That’s even taking into account this bureaucratic redefinition, and is something that everyone in Manchester can be proud of.’
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