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Municipal waste management statistics - Provisional Quarter 2 2008/2009

   

Statistical release

Ref: 106/09
Date: 7 May 2009

Defra today published provisional estimates from the Department’s survey of municipal waste in England, incorporating the second quarter of the 2008/09 financial year (July to September 2008).  These results are based on information supplied by local authorities to WasteDataFlow. 

Limitations of the data

These data are provisional as returns to WasteDataFlow can be revised by local authorities during the scheme year although for this quarter all returns have completed full validation. There are also seasonal effects on waste arisings and management which means care needs to be taken when assessing trends.  Final figures will be released in the annual National Statistics release in November 2009.

For July to September 2008, all 394 local authorities submitted data to WasteDataFlow and at the time the data were downloaded for this release, all authorities had completed validation.

Key findings

To minimise the effects of seasonal fluctuations, comparisons are made between the year April 2007 to March 2008 and the year October 2007 to September 2008, i.e. encompassing the provisional results for the quarter July to September 2008.
Total municipal waste decreased by just under 0.5 million tonnes in the year to end September 2008, decreasing from 28.5 million tonnes to 28.0 million tonnes, or 1.6%.  A decrease in total household waste was observed, from 25.3 to 24.9 million tonnes. Less waste was sent to landfill, decreasing from 15.5 to 14.6 million tonnes.

There was an increase in the household recycling rate, from the average rate of 34.5% between April 2007 and March 2008 to 36.3% between October 2007 and September 2008. The average residual household waste (which is the amount of household waste which is not recycled) decreased from 328kg per head between April 2007 and March 2008 to 314 kg per head between October 2007 and September 2008.

Timing of next release and revisions

Quarterly statistics are released to a regular timetable.  Estimates for October to December 2008 will be published in early August and the final annual set of data for the financial year 2008/09 will be published in early November 2009.  This dataset will include revisions to any quarterly estimates.  It is not intended that estimates for previous quarters will be revised during the quarterly statistics releases, i.e. revisions will only occur in the final annual statistics release.

The tables showing summary estimates, by region, and a more detailed description of the data and methodology can be found in a statistical note on the Defra website at: /environment/statistics/wastats/bulletin09qtr.htm

Notes for editors

1. These tables are the first release of provisional data from WasteDataFlow for the second quarter of 2008/09. These national and regional estimates are based on local authority returns in England.

2. The data were downloaded from WasteDataFlow on 30th March 2009.  At this time validation had been completed for 100% of authorities.

3. Household waste includes household collection rounds (‘bin’ waste), other household collections such as  bulky waste collections,  waste from services such as litter collections, waste from civic amenity sites and wastes separately collected for recycling or composting through bring/drop off schemes, kerbside schemes and at civic amenity sites. Municipal waste is that which comes under the control of the Local Authority and includes household waste and other wastes collected by a waste collection authority or its agents, such as municipal parks and gardens waste, beach cleansing waste, commercial or industrial waste, and waste resulting from the clearance of fly-tipped materials.

4. The amount of waste sent for reuse, recycling and composting is that which is accepted by the reprocessor. As such it excludes any recycling rejects that occur during collection, sorting or further treatment.  Waste diverted for recycling from the residual stream by further processing is included in the recycling tonnages.

5. Information on individual local authorities can be obtained from WasteDataFlow by registering for public access and running summary reports.

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Page published: 7 May 2009