Northern Ireland reaches landfill target one year early
ENVIRONMENT Minister Alex Attwood today welcomed a 10,000 tonne drop in landfill figures.
These showed that landfilled biodegradable local authority collected (LAC) municipal waste dropped by c 40,000 tonnes to 309,792, some 10,000 tonnes below the Northern Ireland Landfill Allowance Scheme 2012/13 target of 320,000.
The Minister commented: “Meeting this challenging target one year early is a major achievement and I would like to congratulate Councils across Northern Ireland who have contributed to this success. These figures indicate how we can stretch ourselves, how the ambition to be a world leader in carbon reduction is not beyond our ambition.”
This was partly due to a reduction of 35,685 tonnes (3.6%) in the amount of LAC municipal waste collected and an increase of 14,413 tonnes (4.1%) in the amount of LAC municipal waste sent for recycling (including composting) compared to the previous year.
Household waste, which makes up 88% of LAC municipal tonnages, also improved showing a larger decrease of 4.1% in the amount collected but a smaller increase of almost 2% in the amount sent for recycling
Commenting on the drop Minister Attwood said: “It is particularly heartening to see household waste reduction leading the way as this is much more effective than anything else we can do. The success of the recent European Week for Waste Reduction, supported by several local councils, has continued to reinforce the idea that prevention is better than cure.”
The Minister added: “Landfilling waste is simply a lost opportunity - we cannot afford to throw away valuable resources. How we tackle these and other issues are raised in the Department’s on-going consultation on the draft revised Waste Management Strategy (Delivering Resource Efficiency). What does this mean? Only 30% of plastics generated in Ireland are recycled and of this, only 30% is recycled in Ireland. We can recycle more plastics and we can do so on this island. This is the green agenda with green jobs.
“This Christmas take time to consider if you have a bigger role to play in our recycling story. We all can do more. We can all stretch ourselves more.”
There were also increases in both the LAC municipal & household recycling (including composting) rates to 38.4% & 39.7% an increase of 2.9 & 2.4 percentage points respectively.
The link http://www.doeni.gov.uk/niea/pressrelease291112graphic.pdf shows a chart of the increase in the household recycling & decrease in the household landfill rates since the Northern Ireland Landfill Allowance Scheme was introduced 7 years ago.
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Saturday 25 May 2013
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