Regional Recycling Activity

Waste facts

There isn’t a great variation in recycling levels by local councils in the Yorkshire and Humber region - ranging from 20% to 24% with a regional average of 24.2% (Source: Defra recycling rates for English LA’s 2006).

Progress is being made towards achieving waste recycling targets but the amount of waste generated per person in the region is increasing. The region had the second lowest per capita household waste production of the English regions in 2002/03.

The region is seventh of the nine regions in terms of the weight of household waste recycled per person per year. (Source: Yorkshire and Humber Government Office Website).

Recycling Market Development

Recycling Action Yorkshire (RAY) is a Yorkshire Forward programme, aiming to stimulate the market for recycled materials. RAY sees its role as directly complementary to WRAP and to assist businesses and organisations in accessing WRAP’s services in the region.

RAY’s priorities for the region include:

• glass;
• plastics;
• organics; and
• procurement.

WRAP has assisted Yorkshire Forward and RAY in developing their market development strategy for the region and continues to support them through partner projects and contributing to their steering group.

RAY has developed a "hands-on" support programme to encourage local business and public sector organisations to buy more recycled content products and integrate sustainable procurement into their everyday purchasing decisions.

One of the tools that has been developed through this programme is an online Recycled Product Guide. This guide has been developed in partnership with WRAP to create a tailored Yorkshire and Humber search tool using WRAP’s main recycled product database. This resource can be accessed via the RAY web site: www.buyrecycled.info

Recycling in Yorkshire and Humber

Glass

• Glass container recycling is highly developed in Yorkshire and Humber. The region has eight of the UK’s 13 glass container plants and two of the three flat glass reprocessing companies. (source: RAY website)

Plastics

• The region is keen to increase plastics collection and recycling to support growth in plastics reprocessing.

Organics

• Increasing composting is a priority for many local councils and food and drink companies, although the region presently has limited composting capacity. WRAP are working in partnership with RAY to develop capacity in end markets for compost and have jointly funded an Implementation Manager - Anthony Walker – to encourage the use of waste derived compost in brownfield land remediation within the region. Anthony will be establishing relationships between developers and the compost industry.