NI Achieves Landfill Target One Year Early

Northern Ireland has achieved its landfill allowance target one year early.

New figures show that municipal waste dropped by about 40,000 tonnes to 309,792.

This amounts to some 10,000 tonnes below the Northern Ireland Landfill Allowance Scheme 2012/13 target of 320,000.

This was partly due to a reduction of 35,685 tonnes, or 3.6%, in the amount of local authority collected (LAC) municipal waste.

It also showed an increase of 14,413 tonnes, or 4.1%, in the amount of LAC municipal waste sent for recycling and composting compared to the previous year.

Household waste amounts to 88% of LAC municipal tonnages. The figures showed this type of waste decreased by 4.1% in the amount collected. An increase of almost 2% in the amount sent for recycling was also noted.

Environment Minister Alex Attwood said: "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.

"Landfilling waste is simply a lost opportunity - we cannot afford to throw away valuable resources. 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."

He added: "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."

The figures also showed increases in both the LAC municipal & household recycling rates to 38.4% & 39.7%; an increase of 2.9 & 2.4 percentage points respectively.

(IT)