Figures reveal how much of your recycling Leeds City Council actually recycles

Waste being sorted at HW Martin in Hunslet, Leeds

Leeds City Council has released the numbers of household recycling that was generated in the past 12 months, of which 24 per cent was unable to be recycled.

A Freedom of Information (FoI) request revealed 38,334 tonnes of plastic, paper and other waste was collected from Leeds residents' green bins between September 2018 and 2019.

Of this figure, 29,308 tonnes were recycled, leaving 9,026 tonnes sent for shredding before being baled and sent to Bulgaria and other European countries.

Leeds' recycling is sorted both by hand and machine at HW Martin in Hunslet

The amount is the equivalent to 1,500 African elephants, or 180 million plastic bottles.

Common reasons for green bin waste not making it to recycling include residents throwing un-recyclable items in the wrong bins, or throwing in contaminated items.

Plastic bottles which haven't been cleaned, or cardboard and paper packaging which have food grease or residue on are unrecyclable.

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Only three quarters of what gets thrown in your green bins ends up being recycled

Most of Leeds' unrecyclable green bin waste from over the past year was sent to the Niramax plant in Hartlepool, before being shredded and baled.

The plant sends the bales to European countries where they are incinerated. The recipients of these included Bulgaria, Cyprus and Sweden, the FoI request revealed.

Some green bin waste which the council were unable to recycle was sent onto Rotherham plant KCM Waste Management, where further separation takes place to potentially extract further recyclable items.

From this, what is still unrecyclable is again sent for incineration.

Figures for the processing of commercial recycling were unavailable.

Coun Mohammed Rafique, the council's Executive Member for Environment and Active Lifestyles, said: “In Leeds more than three-quarters of the waste in green bins is recycled. However for a variety of reasons many people mistakenly put non-recyclable or contaminated materials into their recycling bin.

“Residents should be reassured that, as with all non-recyclable waste in Leeds, none of their waste contributes to landfill and instead is sent to energy recovery facilities to be converted into electricity or hot water.

“Households can help reduce contamination by washing cans and plastic bottles out before disposing of them and leaving out anything from the green bin that they aren’t sure can be recycled.”