Hundreds of tonnes of waste from Ashfield households rejected from recycling centres

The Local Government Association said households and councils have worked hard to increase the amount of waste recycled, but are held back by manufacturers using unrecyclable packaging.

Rejected waste material can be turned away from recycling due to contamination by water, dirt, or chemical treatments, such as preservatives or paint.

Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs figures show an estimated 503 tonnes of household waste were rejected from being recycled after being placed in the wrong bin in the year to April 2022, down from 625 tonnes the year before and from 702 tonnes in 2014-15 when local records of rejects began.

Across England, 6.4 per cent of rubbish sent to be recycled in 2021-22 was rejected.

Last year’s rejects in Ashfield accounted for 2.7 per cent of the 18,326 tonnes of household waste sent for recycling.

An LGA spokesman said: “Manufacturers of plastic packaging products are still continuing to create and sell packaging that cannot be recycled and will be put in the recycling bin by people in good faith.

“The burden then falls on councils to not only collect it and dispose of it, but to pay the extra cost of disposing of it.”

The figures show 44.1 per cent of household waste in England was recycled in 2021-22, up from 43.8 per cent the year before.

In Ashfield, 17,823 tonnes of household waste were recycled, 37 per cent of all rubbish, up from a recycling rate of 36.4 per cent in 2020-21.

A Defra spokesman said it wants to recycle and reuse more waste and support households to do so.

He said: “There was an increase in rejected material reported by local authorities in the wake of the pandemic, but we have since set a suite of targets to reduce different types of waste by 2028 through our landmark Environmental Improvement Plan.”

The plan aims to ban the supply of single-use plastics later this year, make some businesses pay to recycle their own packaging by 2024 and introduce a deposit return scheme for plastic and metal drinks containers in 2025.

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