Local authority municipal waste management: April 2020 to March 2021

This period covers the main period of restrictions during the COVID-19 pandemic. Care should be taken in comparing the 2020-21 results with previous years since it is not clear which effects are short term because of the pandemic and which are longer term. The recycling rate is the percentage of local authority municipal waste that was reused, recycled or composted. The recycling rate has increased considerably during the last two decades (from around 5% in the late 1990s).

Main points

• The recycling rate increased from 65.1% in 2019-20 to 65.4% in 2020-21. This exceeds the target of 64% set in the 'Beyond Recycling' strategy.
• 13 of the 22 local authorities reported an increase in their recycling rate compared to last year.
• 1.47 million tonnes of local authority municipal waste were generated, a decrease of 2.6% on last year and the lowest reported figure to date.

Notes

Data on waste management are collected in order to monitor progress towards national and local targets; in particular against the requirements of the Waste Framework Directive and the Landfill Directive. In its current waste strategy 'Beyond Recycling', the Welsh Government set statutory targets of recycling a minimum of 64% of waste by 2019-20, and 70% of waste by 2024-25.

Data are sourced from the WasteDataFlow system, which is monitored by Natural Resources Wales. Quality information is available in accompanying Quality report.