The amount of municipal and household waste that is being collected by councils in Northern Ireland has fallen by nearly 5% within a year. Alex Atwood, the Minister for the Environment, has welcomed the news that the amount of waste that was collected between July and September of 2011 had dropped compared with the same period of 2010.
This in turn helped the recycling rates for both household and municipal climb to nearly 43%, an increase of almost 1% and 42%, a rise of nearly 2% respectively, as compared with the same period in 2010. The amounts of both municipal and household waste sent to the landfill sites also dropped by around 10% for the same period, meaning that between July and September 2011 54% of household and 56% of municipal waste went to landfill.
Mr Attwood has said that it is not just common sense to minimise the volume of waste we produce allowing the councils to spend money on where its needed most, but is also a boon to the environment as less waste equals less of an impact. While the phrase ‘reduce reuse recycle’ has been around for quite some time now, it is the foundation of Mr Attwood’s departments campaign ‘Rethink Waste’.
He also said that he was pleased to see a continuing rise in the rates of recycling while at the same time seeing a decrease in the amount of waste sent to landfill, and wanted to pass on his thanks to those who were doing their bit to help.
He added that by working together we can all make a difference and the challenges now for Northern Ireland were to see if we can become world leaders in carbon reduction and take their clean and green reputation to a higher level, as this is where he wants to go, and where he believes the country can go.
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