Facts and figures about waste

Did you know that...

in Belfast, we send around 130,000 tonnes of waste to landfill sites every year
our recycling rate in Belfast is currently 29 per cent,but we plan to increase this to 50 per cent by 2020
every household in Belfast has access to a recycling service, whether they have a blue bin or a kerbside recycling box
we regularly run schemes to encourage people to recycle more, such as our popular Stitch and Style events
if we don’t reduce the amount of waste we send to landfill, we'll face heavy fines, possibly as much as £4 million in 2012, and more for each year we continue to miss our target
recycling alone won't allow us to meet our waste reduction targets
continuing to send waste to landfill sites will take up valuable land and is already becoming very expensive
there are 17 Mechanical Biological Treatment (MBT) plants in the UK. Some are planned but most are already up and running
there are 22 Energy from Waste (EFW) facilities in the UK and more than 400 across Europe
any MBT and EFW plants have to operate to the highest standards, as laid down in European and UK legislation
any emissions from an EFW plant are captured and treated to the safest standards
the power supplied by EFW plants could offset our need for fossil fuels, helping Belfast combat climate change.
any MBT or EFW plant would be specially designed to make sure that there are no smells or flies associated with them
any waste facility would be monitored by the site operators, as well as the Northern Ireland Environment Agency
the development and operation of any waste facility would be paid for by the users through a gate fee.