Local authority municipal waste management: April 2023 to March 2024 (headline results)
Data on the reuse, recycling and composting of municipal waste for April 2023 to March 2024.
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Introduction
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 65.7% in 2022-23 to 66.6% in 2023-24. This exceeds the target of 64% set in the ‘Beyond Recycling’ (2021) Strategy.
- 15 of the 22 local authorities reported an increase in their recycling rate compared to last year.
- 1.4 million tonnes of local authority municipal waste were generated in 2023-24. This is a slight increase (0.6%) on 2022-23, however, a decrease of 7% on 2021-22 and the second lowest recorded since 2001-02.
- Residual household waste per person decreased by 2.1%, falling from 172kg in 2022-23 to 168kg in 2023-24.
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’ (2021), 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.
