Council
27 November, 2023
Work to do for better recycling
A review of residential waste has found northern Somerset households are much less ‘recyclable savvy’.
Somerset Regional Council recently conducted an audit of kerbside collection waste to determine how well waste in red and yellowed lidded bins are segregated.
Four key observations were made:
A higher percentage of contamination of recyclable bins occurred in the northern area of the region (22.4% compared to 13.5%)
34% of contamination was caused by non-recyclable plastic material, with bagged contamination accounting for a further 15%.
Recyclable paper is the item most frequently placed in the wrong (red lidded) bin.
Items eligible under the container return scheme contributed to 2.76% of general waste and 1.47% of recycling waste. This equates to 469 containers per tonne of general waste and 209 containers per tonne of recycled waste.
The audit looked at seven samples, totalling 906kg, from random sources across the region.
