The United Kingdom is making progress in meeting its recycling goals, a statistical survey recently released by the Department for Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs showed. The European Union set these recycling goals to lower the impact of human activity on the environment. The United Kingdom intends to meet these recycling goals by their 2020 deadline.

1. Statistical Survey Reveals
United Kingdom Making
Progress Towards 2020 EU
Recycling Goals
LKM Recycling

2. The United Kingdom is making progress in meeting its recycling goals, a statistical survey recently
released by the Department for Environment, Food, and Rural Affairs showed. The European Union
set these recycling goals to lower the impact of human activity on the environment. The United
Kingdom intends to meet these recycling goals by their 2020 deadline.
Recycling Waste from Home
According to the survey, households in the United Kingdom have increased their recycling activity.
The household recycling rate increased from 45.2 per cent in 2016 to 45.7 per cent in the following
year. All countries in the United Kingdom showed an increase in household recycling. English
household increased recycling from 44.9 per cent to 45.2 per cent, while homes in Scotland saw an
increase in recycling from 42.9 per cent to 43.5 per cent. In Northern Ireland, laws that made the
collection of food waste mandatory were responsible for a 3 per cent increase in their household
recycling rate.
The entire United Kingdom had total waste amounting to 222.9 million tonnes in 2016. England alone
generated 85 per cent of total waste the same year.

3. Recycling Waste Outside the Home
In the commercial front, the recovery rate for waste, which is non-hazardous from construction and
demolition activity, was at 91 per cent in 2016. This exceeds the standard of 70 per cent recovery
rate by 2020.
The United Kingdom has also made recycling and other recovery methods the most common type of
waste treatment. The nation recycled and reused 48.5 percent, or 104 million tonnes, of total waste
generated in 2016. Landfills only received 24.4 percent, or 52.3 million tonnes, of total waste.
The number of incinerators in the United Kingdom is also decreasing. The number of facilities in the
country went down from 83 in 2014 to 78 in 2016.
The United Kingdom can meet its goal to have 50 percent of households recycle their waste by 2020
if these trends continue and if recycling practices escalate.

4. Sources:
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file
/784263/UK_Statistics_on_Waste_statistical_notice_March_2019_rev_FINAL.pdf
https://www.lkm.org.uk/
https://data.gov.uk/dataset/882186e7-97b0-4ad0-b253-e28607252f42/uk-statistics-on-waste