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

To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether he has made an assessment of the potential effect on local authority recycling rates of combining business waste with household recycling statistics; and if he will make a statement.

Municipal waste is the combination of household waste collected by local authorities and household-like business waste. The impact assessment on consistency of municipal recycling collections produced by the Government and the Waste and Resources Action Programme estimates a baseline recycling level of 40% for municipal waste. Measures announced in the Resources and Waste Strategy can increase the overall municipal recycling rate to 65%.

Our consultation on ‘Consistency in Household and Business Recycling in England’, which closed on 13 May, sought views on how to increase the quantity and quality of materials collected for recycling from businesses. We are analysing the responses to the consultation and will be publishing the Government’s response to it shortly.