NI Council saves its ratepayers £1million in landfill costs after introducing controversial recycling measures

Ards and North Down Borough has saved over one million pounds in landfill costs over the past year, since introducing new stricter access to its Household Recycling Centres.

At the December meeting of the Ards and North Down Council Environment Committee, elected representatives congratulated officers on the savings, which were announced as part of the waste management performance statistics update.

For the 12 month period, June 2023 to June 2024, landfill cost saving to Ards and North Down Borough Council ratepayers was £1,059,578 compared to the baseline 2021-22 reporting year, based upon current landfill gate fee/landfill tax. Added to this was around £100,000 in landfill haulage cost savings.

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Ards and North Down has experienced a long and arduous journey in tackling poor waste recycling figures - for years it was the council area with the worst figures for recycling and landfill. In September 2023 access to Household Recycling Centres in Ards and North Down moved online in a council bid to crack down on “waste tourism” from residents in neighbouring council areas.

Councillors agreed to introduce a new online booking system for access to its nine Household Recycling Centres, meaning that access to any of the nine centres only became possible via a pre-booked slot. The change met some resistance from locals, with a petition on campaigning website Change.org, opposing the rules receiving thousands of signatures.

However the accumulated waste and cost figures appear to have vindicated council officers who proposed the new system and those councillors who supported them.

The council report to the Environment Committee this month focuses on the official general waste management statistics for the first quarter of 2024/2025, that is April to June 2024.

It states: “All key indicators are positive for this reporting period. They show that not only have we sustained the overall gains achieved since we started a renewed programme of performance improvement in 2021-22, but we have made further significant progress.

“The reduction in our landfill burden seen over recent quarters has been maintained and further improved upon. Moreover, for the second successive reporting period, our HRC recycling rate has surpassed the average rate achieved in other NI Councils.

“Looking at the quality of our recycling performance, an important statistic included in DAERA’s report is the proportion of waste sent to landfill which is biodegradable, and therefore more harmful to the environment in terms of landfill gas production).

“Once again, our council had the lowest percentage of biodegradable municipal landfill waste, at 35.8 percent compared to a NI Council average of 46.6 percent. This reflects our relative success in capturing more biodegradable waste materials for recycling, such as compostable food and garden waste.

“Furthermore, in terms of assessing sustainable waste resource management performance, which must be judged in terms of not just recycling rates but also reduction and reuse of waste, it is significant to note that ANDBC has continued to experience the greatest fall in total municipal waste tonnage of all NI Councils.

“We achieved an 11.7 percent drop in municipal waste arisings during this reporting period compared to the same quarter in our baseline assessment year of 2021-22. The average drop across other Councils was just 4 percent.”

In the quarter, 573 visitors were turned away from just one of the borough’s Household Recycling Sites, because they were not eligible to use them. The report states: “This is a significant number in itself, but it is likely to be the case that a significant number of out of Borough residents will have avoided coming to our sites because of the widely publicised focus upon checking ID for everyone entering. Those turned away will in all probability avoid further attempts to enter and use our HRCs.”

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