UK media reports point to trashed recyclables

While the United Kingdom and the rest of the European Union strive to meet ambitious recycling and landfill diversion goals, recent media reports are highlighting problems British authorities are having actually recycling what is already collected.

The Daily Mail news organisation in the U.K., saying it obtained information through a Freedom of Information request, says the volume of recyclables collected that have instead been sent to landfills or incinerators has doubled in the past four years.

A follow-up online report by The Telegraph says the materials in question are rejected by local authorities “because they contain a scrap of food waste, plastic or fabric.”

How badly contaminated the rejected materials actually are is not portrayed in detail, but in terms of the volume of rejected recyclables, “In 2012, 184,000 tonnes of recycling were thrown away, but [in 2015] that figure was 338,000—an 84% rise,” reports The Telegraph.

Among the geographic districts with some of the highest rejection rates were the three the London boroughs of Newham, Hammersmith and Fulham, reporting a 20% rejection rate, as well as the city of Manchester with an 18% rate.

The recycling difficulties are at odds with a European Commission mandate for EU member states to recycle 65% of their household solid waste by 2030. The U.K. is currently reporting a 44% household waste recycling or diversion rate.