RECYCLING RATES UP ACROSS WALES

Every local authority in Wales has increased the amount of rubbish now being recycled instead of being sent to landfill. The latest figures show that almost a quarter of all Welsh municipal waste is recycled or composted.

Statistics show that across Wales the amount of waste recycled or composted increased to 23 per cent for the year 2005 to 2006, up from 20 per cent in the year before. In 1999, 93 per cent of waste was going to landfill and Welsh Assembly Minister for Environment, Planning and Countryside Carwyn Jones said the expansion of kerbside recycling by local councils and improvements at recycling centres had helped achieve the new levels.”These figures show that the message is getting through and we need everybody to keep on playing their part by recycling as much as possible,” he said. The task now, he said, was for people to change the way they thought about the amount of rubbish they created. “I want people to ask themselves, next time they’re in a shop, if they really need that extra plastic carrier bag, for example,” he added.

The Welsh Assembly Government has allocated funding to help local authorities to deliver more recycling schemes and the next target is to recycle or compost 25 per cent of waste by the end of the current financial year. Councillor Richard Parry Hughes, chair of Waste Awareness Wales and Welsh Local Government Association spokesperson for environment and planning said the figures were another significant milestone in the quest to reduce the amount of waste sent to landfill in Wales.

“Achieving 23 per cent recycling and composting in Wales is something we should all be proud of, and is further proof that people in Wales are continuing to rise to the challenge of improving recycling performance,” he said. There was a great deal of positive activity in Wales through an ongoing awareness campaign, and from local authorities and community groups, he said. All this was helping people realise the difference they could make by reducing, reusing or recycling their rubbish rather than disposing of it.