Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what recent assessment he has made of trends in recycling rates in England.

Trends in recycling rates are routinely monitored through the preparation of the annual local authority waste statistics and would form part of the standard quality assurance checks associated with these statistics. In the most recent published waste statistics release, the England ‘waste from households’ recycling rate was 44.9% in 2016, an increase of 0.6 percentage points from the 2015 rate of 44.3%. This rate has remained relatively stable over the last five years.

Local authorities are best placed to deliver the recycling services in their area and, with householders, have played a key role in increasing England’s recycling rate to the 44.9% I have mentioned. The 25 Year Environment Plan sets out our commitment to make it even easier for people to recycle and increase the quantity and quality of materials collected and further detail will be set out in the resources and waste strategy that will be published later this year. Through the Framework for Greater Consistency, the Waste & Resources Action Programme (WRAP) is working with industry and local authorities to ensure that a consistent set of core materials are collected by all local authorities. WRAP provides valuable tools and resources to support local councils to improve their services. Guidance includes food waste collections, cutting contamination and approaches to material sales.