Some good news in the long-term work being done to tackle what has been described as our “throw away” society. The total amount of waste produced by households in Birmingham fell last year from 459,418 mt to 437,263 mt last year, while total municipal waste fell from 543,645 mt to 528,408 mt.  This is significant news for while there has rightly been a huge effort in making a radical increase in recycling in recent years, the best outcome is to produce less waste in the first place and this is now happening.

In terms of where this waste goes, the biggest impact of this reduction was a major reduction on the amount of waste going to landfill, from 77,763 mt to 64,748 mt.

The other destinations for waste, also saw marginal volume falls. The total amount recycled and composted fell  from 140,539 mt to 139,789 mt and the amount incinerated fell from 335,346 mt to 334,609 mt – however, given the fall in the amount of total waste, both these changes represent a rise in the proportion of waste being processed in these ways, year on year.

These figures are encouraging, especially against a backdrop of a rising population in the City. The task of reducing waste may have been made easier by the recession, so it will be interesting to see if the decline is sustained in coming years; that must be our goal if we are to continue down the path to a truly sustainable Birmingham.

Note: Because some incinerator ash goes to landfill, and is therefore recorded twice, the total figures for landfill, incineration, recycling and composting, marginally exceed the total amount of waste in each year.