Island ‘has one of best recycling rates in world’

Last year, 73% of household waste was sent for recycling or composting, which was up from 50% in 2017.

It meant the island exceeded the target of getting to 70% recycling by 2030 in the first full year of the new waste strategy.

But the success has come at a cost, with Guernsey Waste recording a £1.4m. deficit in its budget because income from people paying to dispose of their black bags was significantly down on what was expected.

States’ Trading Assets deputy managing director Richard Evans said people could be very proud of the recycling rate.

‘This is a phenomenal achievement and it is down to the effort and commitment that islanders have shown in the way that they manage their waste,’ he said.

‘Over the past two years we have introduced new services to help households recycle more and a new way of charging to provide some extra incentive to reduce waste.

‘The response has been amazing and we now have one of the highest recycling rates anywhere in the world – if not the highest.

‘We would like to thank everyone. The team at Guernsey Waste has also done a fantastic job, as have all the parishes and the various waste contractors. We have made some really fundamental changes, which at times has not been easy.

‘We may not always have got everything 100% right, but we have been trying and we are now seeing the benefit. To exceed our target in the very first year is incredible and something we should all be very proud of.’

Compared with the most recently published equivalent figures, the recycling rate put the island ahead of Germany, which had the highest ‘municipal waste’ recycling rate of any EU country in 2018 at 67.3%. Of 26 other European states, only seven reported rates of more than 50% – Slovenia (58.9%), Austria (57.7%), the Netherlands (55.9%), Belgium (54.6%), Lithuania (52.5%), Switzerland (52.5%), and Luxembourg (50.1%).

The 2019 total amount of household waste recycled and composted was 16,639 tonnes. This was an increase of nearly a third since 2017 (12,912 tonnes).

The biggest contribution to the increase came from the introduction of separate food waste collections in 2018. As a result, 3,115 tonnes of such material was collected in 2019. This was sent to the UK to undergo processing to generate electricity and compost.

The total amount of household waste and recycling has fallen by more than 11%, from 25,788 tonnes in 2017 to 22,761 tonnes in 2019. General waste – the material not recycled or composted – more than halved, from nearly 13,000 tonnes to just over 6,000.

This decrease in ‘black bag’ materials follows the introduction of new collections for food waste, which was previously included in general waste, as well as glass, and a switch to fortnightly pick-ups for general waste. These new arrangements began in September 2018 and saw a significant decrease in general waste and a large increase in recycling.

A subsequent, smaller reduction was seen following the introduction of the per-bag charge for general waste in February 2019.

Dry recyclables, such as paper, card, glass, plastics, scrap metal and textiles, were up by 5% – an increase of more than 600 tonnes. However the amount of green waste composted fell by nearly 1,000 tonnes, to just under 4,000 tonnes.

The amount of material collected in the blue and clear kerbside bags was up by more than half, from around 2,300 tonnes to more than 3,500. Meanwhile the tonnages collected at bring banks fell by more than 25%. Glass recycling was up by nearly 20%, to just over 2,000 tonnes.