Recycling in the UK

Recycling performance also varies considerably between local authorities, with householders in the lowest performing areas recycling around a fifth of all the waste material they produce. At the other end of the scale, households in the best performing local authorities recycle as much as 71 per cent of everything they throw away.

Although most local authority recycling statistics are publicly available, they are not always very accessible. The figures for England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland are also published by different organisations at different times, so SUEZ has created the simple interactive map below which shows how each local authority is performing across the UK based on the most up-to-date comparable data available for each region.

Users can click on each individual local authority to see how it performs relative to others. Click and drag the image to navigate around the map and zoom using the plus and minus symbols. You can also search for towns and cities near you to find your local authority using the search function.

For full notes on the data and applicable date ranges, please click on the ‘details’ tab at the top of the map.

Data sources: DEFRA, StatsWales, SEPA, DAERA

The recycling performance data for England is based on information submitted by local authorities showing the percentage of household waste each authority sends for re-use, recycling or composting.

The data is audited and published annually by the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra). This data in this map relates to the 2019/20 financial year as published by Defra on 03 March 2021.

Recycling performance data for local authorities in Scotland is for the 2019 calendar year, as published by the Scottish Environmental Protection Agency (SEPA) on 27 October 2020. The recycling data for Welsh local authorities is for the 2019/20 financial year, as published by WasteDataFlow/Natural Resource Wales in November 2020. Recycling performance data for local authorities in Northern Ireland is as published by the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (DAERA) on 26 November 2020.