Less than 50 per cent of household waste recycled in Buckinghamshire

Less than 50 per cent of household waste is recycled in Buckinghamshire, new figures reveal.

Just 49.6 per cent of household waste is sent for reuse, recycling or composting, according to Buckinghamshire Council data.

This puts the unitary authority in the top 70 for household recycling out of a list of more than 300 local authorities.

Councillor Thomas Broom hailed the council being in ‘the top 20 per cent of all local authorities’.

He claimed that the council had a ‘comprehensive kerbside recycling collection’ as well as 10 household recycling centres across the county.

The council’s energy from waste facility means that only 0.1 per cent of waste goes to landfill, with the remaining non-recyclable rubbish being burned to generate renewable electricity to power homes.

Despite this, Councillor Broom added: “Sadly, there are still lots of recyclable items that end up in household rubbish bins and we are working hard to encourage more recycling where possible.

“This includes promoting our online Waste Wizard tool which allows people to check what can be recycled and also our Zero Waste Map to help avoid waste altogether.”

The council also coordinates outreach events for schools and community groups to encourage more recycling and has discount schemes for home composting, sustainable sanitary products and reusable nappies.

Despite the council’s efforts, it still lags behind dozens other local authorities in terms of household recycling, according to collected waste statistics for 2022-2023 published by the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs.

Many of Buckinghamshire’s neighbouring councils perform better in terms of the percentage of household waste recycled.

These include South Oxfordshire District Council – the best in the country – and Vale of White Horse District Council – the third best – which both have household waste recycling rates of more than 60 per cent.

Other nearby authorities also perform better than Bucks for recycling, including Oxfordshire County Council, West Oxfordshire District Council, Cherwell District Council and West Berkshire District Council.

However, Bucks still performs better than several other nearby authorities including Reading Borough Council, Oxford City Council, Milton Keynes City Council and Windsor and Maidenhead Borough Council.

Other data showed that an average of 477.3kg of household waste was collected per household in Buckinghamshire over the last year for which data was collected.

Bucks Council is also one of the best authorities in terms of the least amount of waste sent to landfill.

More information on how to recycle can be found online here.