Neath Port Talbot records it’s best ever recycling rate thanks to efforts of residents and traders

Figures for the past year show residents of Neath Port Talbot achieved a ‘best ever’ recycling rate of 67.56% making it the eighth best recycling local authority area out of Wales’s 22 councils. 

The council’s recycling rate for the past 12 months reflects the percentage of total waste sent for recycling, composting or reuse with the 67.56% final figure meaning its residents and trading customers have now achieved the area’s highest ever rate of recycling.

Over the next few months, Natural Resources Wales (NRW) will check all the council figures with the Welsh Government publishing the official statistics this Autumn.

Cllr Mike Harvey, Neath Port Talbot Council’s Cabinet Member for Streetscene and Engineering, said: “We want to say a massive thank you to our residents and trade customers. 

“To think, not so long ago Wales was a low recycling nation but now we’re one of the top three recycling countries in the World along with Germany and Singapore.  And with a 67.56% recycling rate we’re the 8^th best recycling borough in the whole of Wales.

“The last 12 months have not been easy for any of us but as well as thanking our residents and trade customers, I’d like to give a special mention to all our collection crews who have not stopped, even during the darkest days of this pandemic.”

Although Neath Port Talbot’s 67.56% recycling rate is comfortably above the current Welsh Government target of 64% there is still more work to be done as Wales heads toward its next target of 70% by 2025.

Neath Port Talbot Council operates a kerbside collection for recycling to all properties across the Borough.  Residents can recycle plastic and cans, cardboard, glass, paper, and food waste for collection every week. 

There’s also a fortnightly collection of green garden waste.

With the exception of paper, the council has seen increases across all the materials it collects at the kerbside with significant increases in both glass and cardboard, each up about 40% on the previous year.

(Lead image: Neath Port Talbot Council)