Devon recycles more than 63,000 tonnes of waste

Devon County Council recycled more than 63,000 tonnes of materials in a year through its household waste recycling centres – the equivalent of about 30,000 family cars.

The county’s 19 centres received 80,421 tonnes of recyclable material and disposable waste in the last financial year, 78 per cent of which was recycled.

A spokesperson for the council said that the tonnage of recycling was reported to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra).

“Once a load delivered to a reprocessor/recycler is agreed as being acceptable for inclusion in a recycling process, the tonnage is recorded at that point,” the spokesperson said.

“There will always be some elements in the various recycling streams that are removed during the recycling process (e.g. plastic bags in garden waste or Sellotape on cardboard) but this is not counted in the Defra agreed recording process.”

The data, requested by the Local Democracy Reporting Service, shows how much of each material is recycled.

Garden waste tops the list at more than 21,000 tonnes, while wood and timber was the second most recycled material at 11,772 tonnes.

The council said its recycling rate hit almost 55 per cent for the 2023/24 financial year.

This figure, which also includes kerbside recycling as well as its recycling centres, is up half a per cent on the previous year and means the county has the second highest recycling rate in the country.

Kerbside recycling is collected by Devon’s eight district councils, and the recycling data also includes Torbay.

East Devon has a 60 per cent recycling rate, making it the sixth-highest performing waste collection authority (WCA) in England, narrowly behind top-performer South Oxfordshire (62 per cent).

Exeter City Council was the eighth highest for the least amount of household waste collected per person.

Cllr Roger Croad, Devon County Council’s cabinet member responsible for overseeing waste services cheered the figures, but said the authority would still look to improve.

“I think we can do even better, and I want to remind the public of the importance of ensuring that they separate out their waste for both their kerbside collections and when they visit a recycling centre ensuring that all metal is placed in the metal skip  for instance,” he said.

“The less residual waste we have the higher our recycling rates will be, and the lower our costs.”

Material recycled

Total (tonnes)

Glass

819

Paper

430

Card

3515

Cans

10

Textiles

630

Metals (Ferrous)

5157

Metals (Non Ferrous)

63

Wood & Timber recycled

11772

Wood & Timber recovered

5585

Green

21382

Plastics (Mixed bottles)

84

Plastics (Bulky Hard)

1075

Engine Oil

80

Cooking/Veg Oil

17

Gas Bottles/Canisters

48

Car Batteries

164

Domestic Batteries

27

Household Goods/Bric-a-brac

1327

Flat Glass

567

Printer Cartridges

2

Tetrapaks

17

Crockery

421

Upvc

23

Fridges/Freezers

1320

Display Equipment

583

Gas discharge Lamps

12

Large Household Appliances

1340

All other WEEE

3225

Hazardous***

34

Plasterboard

608

Tyres

17

Asbestos***

107

Soil and Rubble

3004

General/Residue***

16958

Total

80421

N.B. *** = Non-recyclable waste